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JOHN WEBSTER 



THE PERIODS OF HIS WORK AS 
DETERMINED BY HIS RELATIONS 
TO THE DRAMA OF HIS DAY 

■ DY ==II= 

ELMER EDGAR STOLE 

A. M. (Harv.); Ph. D. (Monac.) 



PRINTED BY ALFRED MUDGE & SON, BOSTON. MASSACHUSETTS 

1905 — 

SOLD BY THE HARVARD COOPERATIVE SOCIETY. CAMBRIDGE 



^^iP 



•-7 



LIBRARY ot CONGRESS 
Two Copies rtocetveu 

APR 11 iyu5 

Obpynuiii aiiry 
liU.Siv O. ^Xc NO! 



Copyright, 1905, 
By E. E. Stoll 



To IIARRIT:T AiilCRTKR STORL 



PREFACE. 

'PHE fir«t three ciiaf)>tere of tbis !;*•*. tf/?*rth«' irith th* •s'-.h^rrvi: ',f th-t wh^/,*^ i'/rrrj:A 
my ioetofi tbau» at Maoidi in the mmmtr fA WA. ~»»i.<s th^r. th^:*^ '.h^.:- •*?* 
bave been rentei. at3d the remaimwr o«<» trtiaeti. Sobs* h^s»^!tix* in th* v-.hTrr,* 
bowei«T. I h2i« had «>!»«» over asidf«erre for fotnrEtrcatinetit. Tiiey are tJifc r^ry 
interesting oaes of tbe tielatk»^n{» of Webctcr"* ctrlc — /- '<., die style «^ die f^^ftst:^ 
Z/^irfiT and Ma/A—notanlr to ttart»oa'» and Totiraeor's. bat vanteeasfftaaXky to Jclin 
Donne's: and of Webster's rdatjoodrip as a thinlcer to tendencie* otfaer tban dra- 
fltatie in bis dsor. 

It would ba«e been interesftuKT to attemfKt so»e inrestKeation of bis life. That I 
renoonced ai flie start: nr task was lat^e en>CM«d» witfaottt it. and a lon^^ star in 
I/Nodoa was oitt of tbe «tnestioa. Bnt I hope tfaat in Chapter I. I base done some- 
duns: in a nejsative war. by detemintnj? that die dramatist was not tbe Jc4m 
Webster. OoCbwofbr. who made bis wMI and died in 1^25. nor a talorat all.* 

The boofc is merely for die Hlfwtietbiwi scholar. Ibavenotscn^ted, inthefeoC' 
notes, to tnm £9r a moment to dus side or to that, in order to dear n^ a pdoMemis 
jMlliUMili^ or to settle a date, e*en dioagh the matter did not oonccm Wdbstcr. I 
h3«« snfiercd footnotes, a p p en di ces, and index of plays and anlhop i to cwell to mow 
than half of die irtMte. And I have d^ifcerstidy omitted to «if<e the stories of the 
(rfars treated, or snmmaries of my own aranment at the end of chs^iler ^k section. 

Some of the references. I fear, may p«?«e incorsect. I base verified iOat$m. in all 
p<>>sibfe cases, in the final copy; b«t many of die works cit£d were then inaeoessiMe 
— beyond sea. —and, asfoFdbeiiEst,onr old dramatiicts — e«enB«9en's — arecenexaltr 
pnnt£d so carefendy that one can ne*cr be care of die nnmfaers of act and scene. 

Myreseairfiesnpondiesowceof the tVhiU D^H ^ss^ nnfinttrficd Iwas<and3m 
still; co ntin ced Oat one fecial book or SCs. «xrtA yf^b^bw. the rare muttul atUi 
mtuU re^itmm wa» my main dew; bnt. after months of trsnel and labor, many of 
the earnest, aud best aceonnte of ^Ittoria still eteded meu* Thesentleman who 
alone has dealt with the story of Vittoria lilce a histcnan. dte Prefect of 0k 
BiMioteca Vitkxio Fman n ffc. at Borne, told me he himtttf had copies of an the 
contemporary aceonnte. and ofcred to pnt diiem at my djtjwsal This he never 
did ; and a ikxt mtfrettimt vmrnt in die relations of Eo^Hsh and UaiBam tJttTTrtnre 
lies, tantalt/jn gly. still in the dark. 



' These seems to be fitHe iHpe for Wcfister. Pyce had hwaestiasattd pret^ thor- 
oKcbly- and I mrsdf base fonnd no ttaceof him in the Begistfr cf the Merchant 
Taylors' SciMol(ed.byC.J.grihiinann,i;,emes.iag?.whereonew»cwddeayeethint,a» 
bam free of the Oo mmny . to base been edncatfd . 

* See below, p. S«f. 



It remains to nictitioti those I have reason to tliank. My wife first and most of all. 
Then my teachers, — Professor Brandl of Berlin and Professor Schick of Munich for 
biblioKrnphy, and Professors Kittrcdjje and Baker of Hansard for criticism or infor- 
mation. Professor Thorndike of Northwestern ITtiiversitj', Professor Sarrazin of 
Brcslan, Dr. llartinann of Munich, and Dr. Kckhardtof Freiburg i. B. have been so 
Koixi as to atiswer the written communications of an utter stranger; and the first" 
named, PR->feS}!or Thoriidike, as the avithor of the iKfiufnce af' fifaumontanil Fletcher 
on S/iiitsfYii' at\ii of Hamlet and the Elicabethan Knenge Plays has, besides, shed 
more lijiht oi\ my path than any otlu-r author. The Rev. Mr. rieay, as author of the 
histories of tlie l';njjlish Drama and Stage, has put me, as every KHzabethan investi- 
grator after him, greatly in his debt. And, last of all, let me remember the many 
kind services of officials, botli high and low, at the libraries in Berlin, Munich, 
Strassburs:, llottingeii, Heidellierg. and Vienna, at tlie many libraries I visited in 
Italy,' at the BiViliothikiue Nalionale, and most of all at those libraries tliat are 
condnctetl as libraries should be, the British Museum, the Boston P\iblic Library, 
and llarvartl l.ibrar.v. Among these, let me mention only some who have beeti 
specially kind or helpf\il, and whose names I happen to be sure of, — Cav. Fuma- 
galli. Director of the I„ibrary of the Brera, Milan. Mr. Kieriuiu of Harvaul, and Mr. 
Chevalier of Boston : and two rare old gentlemen and scholars of Brescia, one of 
them Municipal Archivist, whose names I cannot iiuite recall, but whose courtesy, 

at least, was memorable. 

E. E. S. 
Cambridge, Mass.-vchvsktts. 
Ffbruary, I90S. 

P. S. It is a matter of pleasure and pride to add that the greater part of tlie proof 
has been read by Professor Kittretlg-e. This is only anotlier instance of that signal 
B^nercvsity by which American students of philology, .\oung and old, have long 
since learned to proti*. M\jch of my indebtedness to l*rofessor Kittredge, being 
of a purely negative or corrective character, cannot well l>e indicated ; all other 
indebtetlness is. 

1 add a list of errata for the first sheets, which covers even some annoying slips in 
punctuation. 

' See below, p. S4. 



CONTENTS. 

Abbkeviatioxs, p. H. 
Works Often Cited, p. 9. 

Chapter I. Chronology ; Doubtful Plays ; the Periods of Webster's Work, 
pp. 10-44. 

Sect. I-IX. The Dates of the Plays. 

Sect. X. Authorship of Cure for a Cuckold, Thracian Wonder, and The 
Weakest Goeth to the Wall. 

Sect. XI. The Periods of Webster's Work. 
Chapter II. Period of Apprenticeship and Partnership, pp. 45-82. 

Sect. I. Wyatt: Source ; Webster's Share. 

Sect. II. The Malcontent: Webster's Share ; the Induction. 

Sect. III. The Citizen Comedies : Sources ; Webster's Share. 

Sect. I'V. Dekker's Influence. 
Chapter III. Period of the Revenge Plays, pp. 83-153. 

Sect, I. Sources and Plots. 

Sect. II. Sketch of the Development of the Revenge Type. 

Sect. III. The Whiie Devil and Malji as Revenge Plays. 

Sect. IV. Webster's Contribution to the Revenge Type. 

Sect 'V. Webster's Debt to Particular Re\-enge Dramatists. 

Sect VI. Webster's Debt in his Revenge Plays to .Shakspere. 

Sect 'VII. Doubtful Influences, possibly Shaksperean. 

Sect VXII. The Period as a Whole. 
Chapter IV. The Fletcherian and Eclectic Period, pp. 153-208. 

Sect I. Sources. 

Sect II. The Influence of Fletcher and Massinger. 

Sect III. The Influence of Shakspere and Heywood on Appius and l/irginia. 

Sect. IV. Machiavellism and Marlowe. 

Sect V. The V&ricA as a Whole. 
Cosctcsiox, pp. 208-^. 

Appeitdix I. The Date of the Atheist' i Tragedy, pp. 210-13. 

Appe3»dix II. The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Chapman, pp. 213-14, 
Errata and Addenda, p. 215. 
Index. 



ABBREVIATIONS. 
Webster's Plays and Poems. 



A. & V. Avplus niui Vir- 
Kii\ia. 


Rial. The Uuclioss of 
Malti. 


C. C. A Ciiif fur a Ouck- 
oUi. 


Moil. Col. The Moiunueiit- 
al Cohiiuii. 


D. I,. C. The l)c\ ils l,:i\v- 
Case. 


Moil. Hon. Monumetitsof 
Honor. 



N. H. Northward Ho. 
W. D. The White Devil. 
W. H. Westward Ho. 
W.vatt. The Famous His- 
tory of Sir Thomas 



Wvatt. 



.\ n ton io a nd 

.•Vntonio's Kc- 

rhc .\ t h e i s t s 



A. »S: IM. 

Mellida. 
Ant. Kcv. 

ven>;c. 
Ath. Tr. • 

Traced .\. 
H. & !•■. Hcainnont and 

l-letcher. 
Bon. Honduca. 
Bond. The Uomlniaiv. 
Biissy. Hussy DWnibois. 
Bus. Rev. The Reveiivre of 

Bu.ssy D'.\nilHns. 
Cnuil.N' . T h e 1. a w s of 

Candy. 
Chnll. Beauty. A Chal- 

lenire for Beauty. 
Chap. Chapman. 
Contention. V'irst t'art of 

the Contention betwixt 

the Two l"anio\is Hou.ses 

of Yorke anil Lancaster. 
Corinth. The Oneen of 

Corinth. 
Cus. Coui\t. The Custom 

of the Country. 
Cvip. Kev. Cupid's Ke- 

vensie. 
D. C, Tlie Dutch Cour- 
tesan. 
Kdnionton. The Witch of 

Kdmonton. 
Kmp. Kast. The Kmperor 

of the Kast. 
Kaith. Kr. The I'aithful 

Kriends. 
Fair Maid. The Fair IMaid 

of the Inn. 
Flet. Fletcher. 
Has. HazHtt. or Haz.'s 

'Webster. 
Hon. Man. Fort. The Hon- 
est Man's Fortune. 



CVlMlUR Pl.AYS .\ND AUTHORS 

HolT. Hoffman. 

H. W. The Honest Whore 

Isl. Prin. The Island Trin 



K n i K h t of 
A Kin^ and No 



cess. 
K. Malta. 

Malta. 
K. N. K. 

KiuK. 
1,. D. Lust's Dominion. 
L. F. L. Little French 

Lawyer. 
Lovers' I'roR. Lovers' 

Progress. 
Love's rilR. I.ove's Pil- 

Krima.vje. 
Loy. Sub. The I.oval Sidv 

.iect. 
Love's Mist. Love's Mis- 
tress. 

Lnc. The Rape of Lu- 

crece. 
Malta. The Jew of Malta. 
Rlars. Marston. 
Mass. Massin.vrer. 

Slass. Paris. The Massa- 
cre at Paris. 



Match Me in 



Match Me. 
London. 

M.Tr. The Plaid's Trasretly . 
Milan. The Duke of Milan. 
Mons. Thon\. Monsieur 

Thomas. 
M. W. W. Merry Wives of 

Windsor. 



Philaster. 
The Pict\ire. 
The Piljrrim. 
The Parliament 



Phil. 

Pict. 

rilK. 

P. L. 
Lo\-e. 

Ren. The Renes'ado. 



of 



Reveiijre for 
The Revenger's 



Rev. Hon. 

Honor. 
Rev. Tr. 

Tragedy. 

Roar. Girl. The Roaring 
I'.irl. 

Rule Wife. Rtile a Wife 

and Have a Wife. 
Sat. Saliromastix. 
Sc. L. The Scornful Lady. 
Sec. Maid. Tr. The Second 

Maiden's Traaedy. 
Shak. Shakspere. 
Shoemaker. The S h o e - 

maker's Holiday. 
Soph. .Sophonisba. 

Sp. Cur. The Spanish Cu- 
rate. 

Sp. Tr. The Spanish Trag- 
edy. 

S. R. Stationers' Register. 

Thier. & Theod. Thierry 
and Theodoret. 

Thorn. Thomdike. 

T. N. K. Two Noble Kins- 
men. 

Tour. Toumeur. 

Tra,cr. of Rich. HI. True 
Tragedie of Richard 
Thinl. etc. 

Troublesome Raisme. 

lYoublesome Raigiie of 

lohn. Kins of Ensland. 
True Trasedie. TYne Trag- 

eilie of Richaul. Duke of 

Yorke. etc. 

Yalent. Yalentinian. 

Wife Montli. A Wife for 

a Jlontli. 
W. or Web. Webster. 

Works. Webster's Works, 
ed. Haz. 



Re.n-istered (re.cr.') always means in the Stationers' Register: licensed (lie), by the 
Master of the Revels. Ref. to Webster are made generally by the page. Dramatic ref. 
of 5 figures (.i*. .»;., I. J. IC* mean always act. scene, and line, except where p. (page) is 
prefixeii to the .^rd fig. Columns are sometimes indicateti after page nos. by a.f>. In 
lists of ref. to v>age nos. the repetitioti of a number indicates two examples oti the page. 
2 l>efore a play means Pt. II. O- & F.. Quarto and Folio. — Other ref. are obvious. 



WORKS OFTEN CITED.' 

Arbkr, Kdwarli. a Transcript of the Stationers' KcKister, 5 vols., I/.>nflon, 1875-94. 
IJartlktt, J. A. A New and Complete Ojticordance V) Shakspere, I/jndon, 1894. 
BKAC.vtoNT A.vij Fletchkr. Works. ed. by Darley, 2 vols., I/jndon, no date. 
Chapman, Oroucr. Works, ed. by R. H. Sher^herd, vol. Plays, 1/^don, 1889. 
Chkttlb, Henrv. Patient Ori.s.sel, ed. by r;, Hiibsch, Rrlan^en, 1893. 

Hoffman, ed. by R. Ackerman, J{anif»erK, 1894. 
Ci-.vr,ii'i'E, J. W. Influence of Seneca on Klizaf>ethan Travcedy, I^ondon, 189.3. 
IJKKKER, Tllo.MAS. Dramatic Works, 4 vols.. I/^ndon, 1873. 

riays, \fcrmaid IVI.,' I/jndon, 1894. 
iJKD.si.KV, Robert. Old English Plays, 4th ed., edited by W. C. Ha/.litt. 1.5 vols., 

I/jndon, 1874. 
KcKJiAunT. Kw.'ARD. Die lyUstivte Person im Alteren Kn^l. Drama, Berlin, 19tr2. 
J-'i-KAV. F. G. Biographical Chronicle of the Knjfli.sh Drama, 2 vols., I/mdon, 1891, 

History of the Statre, I vol., I/>ndf>n, 189'i, 
f>ARr>i.vEK, S. R. Histrjry of Fintrland from \fi)7, tfj 1642, 10 vol»., I/widon, 1884. 
G.voLl, DOMEXICO. Vittoria Accoramfjoni, Firenze, 1890.* 
Halliweli,, Ja.mes H. Dictionary of Old Kntflish Plays, Ijcm&rm, I860. 
He.v8I.ovve, Vhu.iv. Diary, ed. by J. P. Collier, I/jndon, 1845. 

ed. by Walter Gresf, Part I, Text, I/jndon, TjI'M.' 
Heywooo, Tho.mas. Works, 6 vols., Ix/ndon, 1874. 

Plays," Mermaid VA., I/^ndon, 1888. 
ISA.MBERT, Tailla.vmek, et DECRtTSv. Recueil fi^^al des Anciennes I/>is Fran- 

^ai.ses, 29 tomes, Paris, 1829. 
Jo.vsfjN, Bkn. Works, ed. by Oifford, \/>r\(\<m, no date. 
KiKSOW, Karl. Die Verschiedenen IJeartxritunK-en der Norvelle von der Her/x.>Kiii v. 

Amalfi, Ansflia VA. 17, 19^2.58. 
KOKHJ'KL, F'.Mii,. Quellcnstndien zu den Dramen Jons'^m's, Marstf>n's, IJeaumont's 
und Fletcher's, F^rlan^en, 1895. 

Quellenstudien zu den Dramen Chapman's, Ma.9sinjfer's, und F'ords, Strass- 
burjf, 1897. 
Kvi>, Thoma-S. Works, ed. by Fred. Boas, Oxford, 19<Jl. 
I.ANfiBAiJJE, Gerard. I,ive» of Kntrli.sh Dramatick Poets, I/jndon, 1691. 
.Mari.owe, Christopher. Plays, Mermaid FVl., I/jndon, 1887. 

Work.s, ed. by A. H. Bullen, 3 vols., I/jtidon, 1885.^ 
.Ma.s.si.vork and Ford. Works, ed. by Coleridtfe, I/jndon, no date. 
Marston, John. Works, efl. by A. H. Bullen, 3 vols., I/^ndon, 1887. 

' Other works used are cited in full in the notes. 

* t.'sed for all plays contained in it: Hon. IV h.. Shoemaker, Forlunalus , lidmonton. 

* Cited ordinarily as " Fleay, ' with vol. numf>er. 

* But really of 1867. 

* This ed. is u.sed unless there is statement to the cc^itrary. 

* Used for Lucrece. 

'' Used when line-numt>ers are cited. 



Martin. Henri. Histoire de France, 16 tomes, Paris, 1844 and 1858. 

Meiners, Martin. Metrische Untersuchungen iiber John Webster, Halle, 1893. 

Meyer, Edw.^rd. Machiavelli and the English Drama, Weimar. 1897. 

MICH.A.UD ET PoujouLAT. Collection de M^nioires, 32 tomes, Paris, 1837. 

MiDDLETON, Thom.\.s. Works, 8 vols., ed. by A. H. Bullen, ]L,ondon, 1885.' 

P.AINTER, WiLi-iAM. Palacc of Plca-surc, ed. by Jacobs, 3 vols., l,ondon, 1890. 

Sampson, Martin. Webster's White Devil and Dnchess of Malfy, Boston, 1904.* 

.Senecae Tragoeuiae. Recens. et emend. Fridericus L,eo, Berolini, 1879. 

Sh.\kspere, William. Works, Globe Ed., L,ondon, 1900. 

Sh.ake.spe.^re's Library, 2nd ed., ed. by W. C. Hazlitt, 6 vols., I^ondon, 1875.' 

Sidney, Sir Philip. Countess of Pembroke's .\rcadia, phot, reprint of 1590 Q., ed. 

by H. O. Sommer, I^ondon, 1891. 
Sm.\ll, R. a. Stage-Quarrel of Jonson and the So-called Poetasters, Breslau, 1899. 
Thorndike, A. H. Influence of Beaumont and I'letcher on Shakspere, Worcester, 
Mass.. 1901. 

Hamlet and Elizabethan Revenge Pla>s, Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass., New .Series, 
vol. X, no. 2. 1902. 
Tourneur. Cyril. Plays. Mermaid Ed.. London. ISSS.* 

Plajs and Poems, ed. by Collins, London. 1S7S. 
Ward, A. W. Hi.story of English Dramatic Literature, 3 vols., London, 1S99. 
Webster, John. Works, ed. by w. C. Hazlitt, 4 vols.. London, 1897.^ 

The Duchess of Malfi, Temple Ed., ed. by C. Vaughan, I.^ndon, 1900. 

See Sainpioii , above. 

■ Used instead of Dekker for Roar ins Girl. 

* This presents the only good texts, but it appeared too late to be u.sed for the 
citations. 

' U.sed for Ci9«/<'«//o«, True Tragedie of Yorke, True Trasedie of Ricii. Ill, Trouble- 
some Raigne, etc. 

* Used for the plays. 

° Cited as " Works," or " Haz." 



10 



CHAPTER I. 

Chronology, and the Authorship of Doubtful 
Plays. 

IN order to understand the development of John Webster's art, it is 
necessary to undertake a rather extensive investigation of the dates 
of the composition of his plays, and, further, of the authenticity of 
some of the doubtful ones. Of the eleven plays still preserved to bear 
his name, two were first published long after Webster and his theatres 
were silent ; and none bears the date of the acting. Of three of these, 
the authorship has been called in question. One of them, the Cure 
for a Cuckold, I shall seek to prove Webster's own ; two, the Tliracian 
Wonder 2iX\<\. The Weakest Goeth to the M'all, spurious. 

1. LOST PLAYS. 

Of the first plays of Webster, we have the dates and nothing more. 
These are derived from entries in Henslowe's Diary. The first is as 
follows : 

Lent vnto vvni Jube the 3 of novnibr 1601 to bye staniell cllath for a clocke • for the 
Webster 
gwisse the some of iij". P. 149. 

This Collier took - to be the drama Webster mentions in the 
dedicatory letter to Sir Thomas Finch, prefixed to his QeviV s Law- 
Case : 

Some of my other works, as The While Devil, The Duchess of Malfi. Guise, aud 
others, you have formerly seen : I present this humbly to kiss your hands and to 
find your allowance : nor do I much doubt it, knowing the Kreatest of the Csesars 
have cheerfully entertained less poems than this * ; etc. 

Such a connection as Collier supposes is in itself suspicious. Why 
should Webster mention the Guise with pride, in company with his 
masterpieces, if it be so early a play as to precede work so crude and 
colorless as his in partnership with Dekker or his Induction to the 
Malcontent? or if the " Owsse " be only a recast of Marlowe's 

' This is evidently cloak, for the next entry (p. 150) is to " bye fuschen and lynynge 
for the clockes for the masaker of france." 
' Footnote to Henslowe (Coll.). pp. 202-3. 
* Works, vol. Ill, p. 5. 

11 



Massacre at Paris (as Collier also suggests) ? ' But the main objec- 
tion is in the entry itself. " Webster,"" Collier says, "is interlined, 
perhaps in a different hand " ; but Mr. G. F. Warner says it is forged. 
Even on " internal evidence " the entry is highly suspicious : why, as 
Mr. Flea}- suggests, should the name of the author be added to an 
entry that has to do yd\.\\ the buying of properties ? But it is spurious : 
"there can be no doubt whatever," says Mr. Warner, "that the 
name was not written by the same hand as the rest of the entry ; and 
it is equally evident that it is a spurious modern addition."' Now it 
is not cited by Dyce among the other entries in Henslowe at p. v of 
his introcUiction to the edition of 1830 : it therefore did not then exist. 

The "Gwisse,"' then, is nothing but Marlowe's Massacre at Paris, 
entered eight times'^ in Henslowe, and indifferently as "gves, " 
"Gwies," "gwsse," "gwesse," "masaker," "massaker, " " masa- 
cer, " " masacar, ' ' — not Webster's Guise. When this last was wTitten 
no one knows ; but it is not improbable, as we shall yet see, that Webster 
in his words to Finch was writing carefully and chronologically, and 
that, as in his mention of them IMalfi rightly follows the White Devil, 
the Guise rightly follows Malji, and belongs to the period 1617-22. 

Of the remaining lost plays, I have only to record a series of entries*: 

L,ent vnto the company the 22 of maij 1602 to gene vnto antoney nionday & niihell 
drayton webester & the Rest in eame.ste of a Boocke called sesers ffalle the some 
of v". P. 166. 

L,ent unto Thomas downton the 29 of maye 1602 to paye Thomas dickers drayton 
mydellton & webester & monda\e in fulle paymente for ther playe called too shapes,* 
the some of iij". P. 167. 

I^ent unto Thomas hewode & John webster the 2 of novmbr 1602 in eameste of a 
playe called cryssmas comes bute once ayeare the some of iij"." P. 184. 

One more dramatic work, a lost one, completes the list. In Sir 
Henry Herbert's office-book there is an entry under date of September, 
1624: 

A new Tragedy, called, A I.ate Mntther of the Sonn upon the Mother: Written by 
Forde, and Webster." 

' Henslowe (Coll. ed.), p. 202, note. 

' G. F. Warner, Catalogue of A/ss. ami Muniments of Al/eyn's College of God's 
Gift at Dulwich. London, 1881, pp. 161-2. Cf. Greg's Henslowe, pp. xlii-iii. 

' See the Index to Hen.slowe (Coll. ed.). But I give Greg's readings, pp. 15, 17.72, 
149, 150, 153. etc., twice with "of France" following, never "at Paris." 

* Given in Haz.. but I take them directl.x from Henslowe. 

* Coll. reads ' too harpes.' 

* There are also two entries recording payments to Dekker a'iid to Cheltle on the 
sanje play, the 23rd and the 26th of November, p. 185. 

'See George Chalmers's Supplemental Apology for Beltet'ers in the Shakspeare- 
Papers, I,ondon. 1799. pp. 218-19. 

12 



II. THE MALCONTENT. 

In 1604 Marstoii's Malcoutent ys^^i?, first published. It appeared in 
two editions In the srune publisher; the first entirely b)^ Marston, 
the second "augmented b}- Marston, with additions played by the 
King's Majesties Servants, written by John Webster." The play 
was registered July 5th, 1604. It was in this same year that Web- 
ster's part was contributed. Reasons why are involved with the 
question hotv much he contributed, both of which matters were best 
relegated to Chapter II. 

Three plays, all first printed in 1607, bear also Dekker's name, — 
Sir Thomas Wyatt, Westivard Ho, and Northward Ho. They are 
Dekker's, as we shall see in Chapter II, in substance, style, and spirit ; 
and nothing in them would suggest that they are also Webster's. But 
three title-pages of first editions are too strong to be lightly confuted, 
even on evidence of a positive character ; and such is wanting. 

III. SIR THOMAS WYATT. 

W'yatt is the earliest, certainly, of the three. The style is more 
primitive (though of course Elizabethan tragedy' can not be profitably 
conipared with comedj^ in this respect, being far more conventional- 
ized and conservative); and there is earlier external evidence, that 
is, in Henslowe : 

lyCnt vnto thomas hewode the 21 of octobr 1602 to paye viito nir deckers chettell 
smythe webester & hewode in fulle payment of ther playe of ladye Jane tlie some of 
v" X'. P. 183. 

I^ent vnto John ducke the 27 of octobr 1602 lo gene vnto thomas deckers in earneste 
of the 2 pt of I^ady Jane the some of v*. p. 184. 

That the title should here be Lady Jane is not surprising : that is Hens- 
lowe's wa)-. Marlowe's RIassacre at Paris, as we have seen, Henslowe 
calls indiscriminately " Gwisse " and " Massacre of France," and he 
calls i\\^ Spanish Tragedy "Jeronymo"^; hence it is not at all sur- 
prising, especially when we remember that, as a rule, these English 
historical plays were named after the king or queen at the centre of the 
action (cf. Shakspere's Henries and Richards), that Henslowe should 
name the play after the occupant of the throne rather than after the par- 
tisan, and principal character, Wyatt. As to a Second Part, it is difficult 
to conceive of it unless it be in the present play, which contains Jane's 
and her husband's death, and the "coronation of Queen Marj', and 
the coming in of King Philip"; and Dyce's conjecture- that Wyatt 



See Boas. Kyd's Works, Oxford, 1901, 
See Dyce's Webster, ed. 1857, p. xii. 



13 



is composed of fragments from the two parts may be correct. Yet 
the play is over small to be a consolidation of two parts, and the 
coronation and the ' ' coming in of King Philip ' ' appear only on the 
title-page, not in the text itself ; and loose and fragmentary as the 
structure is, it is not more so than that of plent\' of chronicle-histo- 
ries. vSo it is quite as possible that we have here the Fir.st Part alone. ' 

IV. THE CITIZEN PLAYS. 

The next pla)' in point of time is IVeslzfard Ho, registered to print 
March 2nd, 1605. Its probable backward limit is the taking of Ostend, 
September 24th, 1604 -: 

How long will yoii hold out, think yon? not so long as Ostend. \V. H., I. 1, p. 71. 

The book of the siege of Ostend, writ by one that dropped in the action, will 
never sell .so well as a report of the siege between this grave, this wicked elder and 
thyself: an impression of yo\i two would away in a !\Iay morning. IV. 2. 

The interest of the English in the siege, as history .shows, •' was 
great, and contemporary allusions in the dramatists are numerous.^ 
This first allusion proves that the play was acted at least after the 
length of the siege of Ostend had become proverbial ; and it would 
fit better, of course, — as in.sinuating that she could not hold out 
forever — after Ostend had been taken. The second would seem to 
indicate the author's own observation, and that the 'book' was out, 
and the .siege over.' 

' Mr. Fleay (I, p. 130; II, 269) is of the opinion (without argument) that Wyatt 
was put together from fragments at a date considerably later than 1602. He.makes 
the simple statement, as if the play itself indicated it: " Queen Anne had been 
crowned, James had come in, and the Cobham plot had been discovered in the mean-_ 
while." — Of all this, there is no shred of evidence. 

° Mr. Fleay (II, pp. 269-70) settles the very month and day of D.'s and W.'s parts. 
A story is told in III, 3 Unst. I'll tell thee. The term lying at Winchester in 
Henry the Third's days, etc.), and Mr. Fleay infers that the date of this part was 
summer, and the summer of 1603 ! He adds: " In Northivard Ho we are told that 
IVeslwaid Ho was acted ' before Christmas,' but it was only just before." Mr. }-'leay 
does not give a reference to the passage, but it is certainly A'. //., I. 2. p. 186 : " and 
for those poor wenches that before Christmas fled westward with bag and baggage." 
It has no possible reference to W. H., but is one of manj references to ridding the 
city proper of harlots. The citizens' wives in IV. Pi. were not poor wenches, nor did 
they flee with bag and baggage: they went on a lark. And " wei)'rard^' by no 
means equals " vveshnard ho .' " 

^ Gardiner, Hist, of Enz. 1603-1642, vol. I. pp. 102, 214, 

* Tourneur's Ath. Tr. : Chapman, etc. 

* I am loath to give u|) what at first seemed to settle the date of H'. H. definitely, 
and at the same time shed an interesting light on Dckker's journali.stic metliods of 
work, — a coincidence between the name of the Italian merchant Justiniano in the 
play, and tlie Venetian ambassador "justiniano" (Ital. Giustiniano and Venet. 

14 



The (late of Northivard Ho is somewhat involved with the dates of 
the two other citizen comedies — \['i'st7i'an{ llo, and Joiison, Chap- 
man, and Marston's luxshvard Ho. What was the order of these 
phiys? ]\'c-st7vard Ho, Eastrcanf Ho, Nortlrward Ho, answers Mr. 
Fleay, and, I think, rightly. Westward Ho, the pioneer, was written 
by Dekker and Webster for the Children of Panl's ' ; liastcvard Ho 
was written byjonson and the re.st, in friendly, interlopinj^ rivalry, for 
the Children of her Majest}-'s Revels at Blackfriars - ; and Northivard 
Ho was the Paul's ^ rejoinder. For Eastzvard Ho contains in its pro- 
lojiue a reference to IVestu'ard Ho, not only so precise in character as 
not to be mistaken, but also so frankly laudatory as c\ idiiilly to ihal- 
lenge for itself a similar success ' ; and Xort/ncard I lo, unnuiilioned 

Giustim'an) lUftUioucd by Mr. I'oin in a letter to Sir Roln it Oultoii, Jan., I(i05 
WoKitaud r/m.-s <>/ .Amirs I. l.uiidi.ii. Isls, 1 . I P , He tells . if the spleiulov ol' the 
presentation of him to the kiiin b\ the oiit>ii)iiia ainhassador, Moliiio. lUit the 
date 1605 is oUl St.\le. aetually is 16(16 (a dale whieh i'alfudai of Sla/r /'at^os. 
I 'fiiffi'aii, vol. X, ai I. .s-t'l, confirms), (iiiistiniano was not appointed till Mar. IS, 160,S, 
and did not reach I,ondon (ill Jan., 1606. (Cf. l!ora/./.i e lierchet, Ven., 1S6.?, Ser. IV, 
Jn)ilii/.\i. .^f). Yet it .seems as if there muiit be more than chance to explain this 
coincidence and another, — the name of the character Candido in a drama of this 
very year (//. U'., 1604). A Si^rnor C.indido is spoken of b,\ John Chamberlain in a let- 
ter dated Mar. 25, 161_' and auain, .\pril, 1(.1_', to .Sir l)u<lle,\ Carleton (ibid., pp. 16'1-6). 
He seems to he, like Carleton, in X'enice, to have to do with the Uishoi) t>f Kb', 
and to have written a panejjyric on James 1. This Candido may have been V^iiicent 
Marine Candido, 1573-1637 (Biojf. ('.6n.); — bnt I make no further progress. Yet 
there may have been some way for the poet of the A'odriiis; Citl (Moll Ciiti)nrse, a 
character of the day, see lUdlen's Middleton, ]\', i). 4), of Kavaillac (// 7V//.v he not a 
(/o()(/ /V(/.i') , to learn of these names ; and Jirstininno ma>- not have been the name 
of the character at the first performance. 

' That //'. //. was from the first written for Paul's — not an aeipiisition shortly 
before pnblication in 1607 — is proved b.v the reuistration at the Stationers'. Mar, 2, 
1604 : " presented \^y the children of Tanl's." 

" Title-page of 1605 Q. ' Title-iiatje. 

■* Noted first bj' Dyce: 

" Not out of envy, for theri's no elTeet 
Where there's no ca\ise ; nor out of imitation, 
For we have evermore been imitated ; 
Nor out of onr contention to do better 
Than that which is opposed to ours in title, 
Kor that was good ; and better cannot be : 
And for the title, if it seem affected . 

We might as well have called it, " (".od .nou good even " : 
Only that eastward westwards still exceeds. 
Honor the sun's fair rising, not his .setting. 
Nor is our title iitterl.N- enforced. 
As by the points we touch at .\o\i shall see. 
Bear with onr willing pains, if dull or witty. 
We onl.N- dedicate it to the cit.\ . " 

15 



in the prologue, contains a satire on Chapman, who was probably the 
main author of Eastivard Ho. With this, such dates as are at hand 
agree. Westward Ho was registered, as we have seen, March 2nd, 
1605 ; Eastward Ho was registered at the Stationers' September 4th, 
and the authors of it, who were arrested for satire of the Scotch, 
found themselves in prison at least after May, 1605 ^ ; and Nortlnvard 
Ho was not registered till August 6th, 1607. 

Nortlnvard Ho is, then, the last in the series. In my opinion, it is 
so late as to fall within the year 1606.- It contains (IV 4,) a passage ' 
remarkably similar to Marston's Fazvu, borrowed, I think, from it: 

Be//. IJiit what sa.\' you to s>ich .\ouns: gentlemen as they are ? 

Bawd. Poh ! they, as soon as they come to their lands, get up to I^oiidon, and 
like s(|m'lis that nni iii)on lines, they keep up a spitting of fire and cracking till they 
ha' spent all ; and \\ lien in,\ s(inil) is out what says his punk? foh, he stinks! 

N.H.. p. J42. 

Herod. . . . What, more fire-works, sir? 

Pane. There be .S(|uibs, sir ; which squibs, running upon lines, like some of our 
gaudy gallants, sir, keep a smother, sir, with flishing and flashing, and, in the end, 
sir, the.\- do, sir- — 

Nym. What, sir? 

Page. Stink, sir. Farfw, I, 2, 20 f. 

The basis of these two unedifying passages is possibly, as with so 
man}' Elizabethan jokes and diatribes, a popular saying ; but there is 
no question, nevertheless, that in phrasing the one passage is indebted 
to the other. ' Which is the original? Certainly, if coherence and 
continuity of texture are signs of originality (and patchwork of bor- 
rowing;, it is Marston's. Only in his is the real force of the figitre to 
be felt : it is broken and obscured by the " spent all " in Dekker and 
Webster. The style of his passage, moreover, is thoroughly his own, — 
the delight in (li.sgusting images, the " smartne.ss " of expre.s.sion, the 

' As is i)rovcd bS' Jonson's celebrated letter, dated 16U5 (Gifford's Joiison. Mem., 
pp. 40-41). This letter, as Fleay notes, must be subsequent to May 4th, for Cecil was 
then first created Karl of Salislniry, — That the letter refers to E. H., and is written 
on occasion of impri.sonment for it, no one should doubt ; yet Gifford, Bullen, and 
Fleay all think this a subsequent imprisonment. There is no space to go into the 
matter here ; but the only good reason ever offered — J.'s failure to mention Mars. — 
is ab.solutely confuted by Jon.son's and Chap.'s letters, di.scovered b>- Mr. B. Dobell, 
and pid). in Al/ienaeum, March 30th, 1901. In these complaints to the King, I,,ord 
Chamberlain, and others, neither of the authors mentions M.: and Chap. expres.sly 
says (to the King), that their offence consists "but in two claw.ses and both of 
them not our owne." Marston's, then, who had escaped. 

^ Mr. Fleay (II, 270) dates the play 1605, c. Feb. Yet he holds it the last of the 
plays ! 

^ Pointed out in Bullen 's Marston, Vol. II, p. 121. 

■* The figure occurs, in other form, phrasing, and application, elsewhere in Dekker, 
as //. W.. p. 219. 

16 



real force in both rhetorical structure and figure.^ Yet these same 
qualities, lacking generally in Webster and Dekker, are perceptible 
even in the corresponding passage of their play. Now Marston's play 
was registered March 12, 1606, and published in two editions the same 
year, while Northivard Ho was not registered till 1607. When, then, 
we consider, further, that Marston according to Anthony Wood's 
account ' was in great renown in 1606 for his wit and ingenuity, ' and 
that Webster himself in his next succeeding work has two quotations 
from this ver_v play,- it seems pretty probable that Webster and 
Dekker, in order to piece out the rather skimble-skamble stuff of 
the crazy bawd's speeches, had stolen this impudent saving from 
Marston . 

The Fazvn first appeared on the boards after Januar}-, 1606. It 
contains a reference to the execution of Sir Edward Digby and his 
fellows, January 30th, 1606. ' That the play appeared in print so soon 
thereafter is only in keeping with what we know of its popularity : 
two editions appeared that same year, one of them pirated, and in the 
other the author himself declares, that " it cannot avoid publishing." 
If, then, the Farvn is to be dated after January-, 1606, A^orthivard Ho 

^ It is unprofitable to quote examples, bvit any one who will read more of the Fawn 
or D. Cor the Erichtho passages in Sophon., will find plenty. In the Faicn itself: 
II, 1. 39-42 ; 1, 94-97 ; 1, 78-81 ; IV, 1, 545-7 ; I, 2, 221 f. Cf. Male, V, 1, 34, where ' stink- 
ard ' is used as synonymous with the sort of man Marston here describes. 

"Fazvn, IV, 1, 106, and /F. Z).,p. 15; Fazvn.lX .\,?,2%,&nA IV. D., p. 22 (this dubious). 

' Fazvn, IV, 1, 309 f : " Nay, heed me, a woman that will thrust in crowds, — a lady, 
that, being- with child, ventures the hope of her womb, — nay, gives two crowns for 
a room to behold a goodly man three parts alive quartered, his privities hackled off, 
his belly lanched up." — Mr. Bullen {in loc.) says it refers to Digby, and cites .Stow, 
ed. 1631, p. 882, which runs thus : " The next Thursday [Jan. 30th] .Sir Edward Digby, 
Robert Winter, Graunt, and Bates were drawn, hanged, and quartered at the West 
End of Saint Paul's Church. . . . Friday, the last of January, in the Parliament Yard 
at Westminster were executed as the former, Thomas Winter, Rookewood, Keyes, and 
Fawkes . . . their quarters were placed over I^ondon gates, and their heads upon 
the Bridge." We must confess that we are dealing here only with probabilities; 
executions — hanging and quartering — were not then uncommon. Mr. Fleay, 
indeed, holds a brief for that of Watson and Clarke, at Winchester, Nov., 1604 {sic 
always, though Gardiner, Did. Nat. Bios., and Stow himself, pp. 829-31, say 1603) , 
not only in the case of the Fa'u'>i but also of Michaelmas Term (reg. May, 1607) and 
Isle of Gulls (see below). But the point in the Fazun and in Michaelmas is, that 
■women came to see ; that, so great was the crowd, they paid two crowns a room ; 
that it was in I,ondon, and all the audience knew of it, and understood without more 
words. It is impossible to think that it should have been the execution at Winchester 
(66 miles away, whither at that day few I<ondoners would have gone for the show, 
certainly few women) of two obscure offenders ; rather than that in the heart of 
lyondon itself, of the reckless devils who startled Eng. from shore to shore. If 
ever women went, or if ever rooms round Paul's or Parliament Yard sold high, it was 
at the execution of the Gunpowder Plotters. 

17 



(if it be certain that this play draws the passage from the Fazvii) must 
come still later. 

To reinforce this long and rather too slender thread of argument, 
let me join to it another. Day's Isle of Gulls, printed in 1606, con- 
tains, as Mr. Fleay' observes, a reference to all three of our plays, in 
a passage, which, since it deals with the author and his literary iden- 
tity, cannot possibly be interpreted according to the primary- meaning 
of the phrases. It would say, this author is not any of those popular 
comic poets you already know : — 

Prol. A meere stranger, sir? 

3. A stranger! the better welcome : comes hee East-ward, West-ward, or North- 
ward hoe? 

Prol. None of the three waies, I assure you. 

1. Prethe where is he ? 

Pro!. Not on his knees in a corner . . . but close in his studie writing hard to get 
him a handsome suite against Sommer. 

This induction was written, very certainly, for the first perform- 
ance of the play ; for it speaks anxiously of the reception of it, and 
of the identity, the trying position, and the needs of the author. 
The play must have been first performed, therefore, after the series of 
our three plaj's Westward Ho, Eastward Ho, and Northward Ho, 
which starts at the close of 1604, and yet enough before ' ' Sommer ' ' 
to give pathos to the author's needs. The dilemma is, whether the 
summer be that of 1605, or that of publication, 1606.^ The quotation 
from the Faivti, considered above, should turn the balance in favor of 
the latter. 

V. THE WHITE DEVIL. 

The next play is the White Devil. It was printed without register- 
ing in 1612, and not again till 1631. To the date of the acting there 
are many clews.* One is the reference to Barnaby Rich's A'^ezv 
Description of Ireland,^ 1610, long ago pointed out by Reed but 
hitherto ignored as a means of settling the date : 

An Irish gamester that will play himself naked and then wage all downwards at 
hazard, is not more venturous. W. D., p. 16. 



' Bios. Chr., I, 105. 
■ ' Haz., I, p. 65: " Eastward Ho and Westward Ho were cries of the Thames Water- 
men," etc. 

^ That the Isle of Gulls should be thought to contain an allusion to an execution 
(that is, in the quibble of the Induction on " quarter ourselves " ) , whether Watson 
and Clarke's or any other, is ab.surd. 

* The earliest and most certain are the echoes from Lear. See Chap. III. Lear was 
acted on St. Stephen's Day, 1606, and first printed in 1608. 

" A new description of Ireland wherein is described Ihe disposition rvhereunto they 
are inclined. Printed for T. Adams, L,ondon, 1610. 

18 



There is there a certain brotherhood, called by the name of Karrowes, and these 
be common gramesters, that do only exercise playing at cards, and they will play 
away their mantels and their shirts from their backs and when they have got 
nothinpr left them they will trusse themselves in straw. This is the life they lead , 
and from this they will not be reclaimed. New Description , p. 38. 

Another passage, in Brachiano's angry words to Vittoria : 

what ! dost weep ? 
Procure but ten of thy dissembling' trade, 
Ye 'd furnish all the Irish funerals 
With howling past wild Irish 

may have been suggested by the description, at p. 12 in the same 
book, of the demeanor of Irishwomen at funerals.^ At all events, 
this book was registered April 10th, 1610. 

Another clew is an echo from the Atheist's Tragedy (registered 
September 14th, 1611) to be found in the celebrated trial-scene: 

Moriticelso : Away with her, 
Take her hence. 
Vittoria. A rape ! a rape ! 
Mont. How ? 

Vit. Yes. you have ravish 'd justice ; 
Forc'd her to do your pleasure. H\ D.. p. 65. 

Sebastian. A rape, a rape, a rape ! 

Belforest. How now ! 

D'Amville. What's that? 

.Sebas. Why what is 't but a rape to force a wench, etc. Ath . Tr., p. 263. 

In both cases it is an abrupt cry, unexpected and startling, against 
unjust force ; in both cases, a tropical expression that has to be 
explained by the speaker. It is very likely, then, that the one was 
imitated from the other. That one was Webster's ; for, if borrowed 
through print, Tourneur's was the earlier ; and if through public 
rendering, Tourneur's was b}' far the more prominent and notice- 
able. The utterance in Webster is without consequence, and is 
not again alluded to ; that in Tourneur, on the other hand, is the 
cause of the breach between Sebastian and his father, etc., and is 
alluded to explicitly twice afterwards.^ Now the Atheist's Tragedy 
comes later, at least, than King Lear, and dates in all probability not 
long before its publication.'' 

But the most significant evidence is that of the preface and the 
postscript.* Here Wekster's mood is evidently like Jonson's in his 



' Neither of these passages could have been suggested by Rich's Short Survey of 
Ireland, 1609 (reg. 1609). 

* III, 2, p. 293, and II, 3, p. 273. 

' In 1611. See App. I for the date of this play. 

* vSee Works. II, p. 143. 

19 



prefaces (though more from neglect than from antagonism), and like 
Jonson he publishes to right himself. He defends himself for taking 
so much time to write the pla\', — a rather pointless thing to do if it 
were already long before this on the stage ; and he alludes to the first 
performance, twice over, in both preface and postscript, as if it was 
fresh in his memory. The first time, he assails the "auditory," and 
the second, he praises and thanks the actors, one of them especially 
and by name. This he would hardly have done, or cared to do, long 
after the performance. For why open an old wound? Why recall 
his own or others' forgotten vexations ? Let me quote from the 
preface and postscript themselves : 

In- publishing this Tragedy, I doe but challenge to myselfe that liberty which 
other men have tane before mee ; not that I affect praise by it, for, nos haec nouimus 
esse nihil, onely, since it was acted in so dull a time of Winter, presented in so open 
and blacke a theater, that it wanted (that which is the onely grace and setting-out 
of a tragedy) a full and vmderstanding Auditory ; and since that time I haue noted, 
most of the people that come to that play-house resemble those ignorant asses (who, 
visiting stationers' shoppes, their use is not to inquire for good books, but new 
books), I present it to the generall view with this confidence : 

Nee rhoncos metues maligniorum. 
Nee scombris tunicas dabis molestas. 

If it be objected this is no true drammaticke poem, I shall easily confesse it, non 
potes in nugas dicere plura meas, ipse ego quam dixi ; willingly, and not ignorantly, 
in this kind haue I faulted : For should a man present to such an auditory, the most 
sententious tragedy that euer was written, obseruingall thecritticall lawesas heigh th 
of stile, and grauity of person, inrich it with the sententious chorus, and, as it were, 
lifen Death, in the passionate and waighty Nunlhts: yet after all this diuine rapture, 
O dura messorum Ilia, the breath that comes from the uncapable multitude is able 
to poison it . . . 

To those who report I was a long time in finishing this tragedy, I confesse I do 
not write with a goose-quill winged with two feathers ; and if they will neede make 
it my fault, I must answer them with that of Euripides . . . 

Detraction is the sworne friend to ignorance : for mine owne part, I haue euer 

truly cherisht my good opinion of other mens worthy labours, especially of that full 

and haightned stile of maister CHAPMAN, the labor'd and understanding workes 

of maister Johnson, the no lesse worthy composures of the both worthily excellent 

maister Beaumont and maister Fletcher ; and lastly (without wrong last to be 

named), the right happy and copious industry of m. Shake-speare, m. Decker, 

and m. Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light : protesting that, 

in the strength of mine owne judgment, I know them so worthy, that though I rest 

silent in my own worke, yet to most of theirs I dare (without flattery) fix that of 

Martial, 

— non norunt Haec monumenta mori. Works. II, pp. 6-8. 

For the action of the Play, 'twas generally well, and I dare affirm, with the joint- 
testimony of some of their own quality (for the true imitation of life, without striv- 
ing to make nature a monster) the best tliat ever became them ; whereof as I make 
a general acknowledgment, so in particular I must remember the well approved 
industry of my friend Master Perkins, and confess the worth of his action did crown 
both the beginning and end. lb., p. 143. 

20 



The nettled spirit and the circumstantialit}- of these passages seem 
to me to prove they are not long after the event. Details of phrasing 
confirm this ; for there is evidence that before setting at this his first 
preface Webster looked round for models. He took, piecemeal, the 
seventeen-word Latin passage above from Dekker's preface — Ad 
Detractorem — to Satiro7nastix, ^ the final ' ' non norunt haec ' ' from 
Dekker's preface to his Knight's Conjuring,- and several phrases and 
ideas from Jonson's prefaces to Sejanus (1605) and to Catiline (1611). 
This last correspondence — 

. . . \ cr&ve leave to stand near your light, and by that to be read. Posterity tnay 
pay your benefit the hoiiovir and thanks, when- it shall know that you dare, in these 
jig-given times, to covintenance a legitimate poem.^ — 

might, indeed, be explained away, were it not for the indubitable 
imitation of the other prefaces, namely, Dekker's, and Jonson's to 
Sejanus.^ 

Finally, at" the close of the Epistle Dedicatorie to // this be not a 
Good Play, addressed in this same year of 1612 "to my loving and 
loved friends and fellowes, the Queenes Maiesties seruants, ' ' Dekker 
says : 

I wish a Faire and Fortunate Day to your Next New-Play for the Makers-sake and 
your Oivne, because such Braue Triumphes of Poesie. and Elaborate Industry, which 
my IVorthy Friends Muse hath there set forth, deserue a Theater full of very Muses 
themselues to be Spectators. To that Faire Day I wish 2l Full, Free and /Cn07t'ing 
A uditor. etc. Works, Vol. Ill, p. 262. 

This play must be the White Devil. Fleay, who first noticed the 
passage (I, p. 134), says the DeviVs Law-Case ; but that plaj' was 
certainl}^ not written (as I show below) till 1621-3. Anyway, it would 
not fit. Dekker is interested, it would seem, in a maiden effort. That 
the White Devil is ; and, besides, a " brave Triumph of Poesie," and 
brought forth by "elaborate Industry," and plaj'ed, as the title-page 
of the 1612 Quarto informs us, by the Queen's Servants. Moreover, 
the fact that Dekker and Webster, after the preceding j^ears of part- 
nership, were now, in 1612, after several changes of company, both 
writing for the Queen's Men, would argue a great and lasting friend- 



' Non potes in Nugas dicere plura meas, 

Ipse ego quam dixi. — Qui se mirantur, in illos 
Virus habe : nos haec nouimus esse nihil. 

' A KnighVs Conjuring (1607?); it is the same, word for word, and, aswith W., 
closes the pref. 

' Prefatorj- I^etter to Pembroke. 

* The paragraph beginning " If it be objected,' etc., for instance, is fairly a plagi- 
arism of the second paragraph of Jonson's address " To the Reader," prefixed to 
Sejanus. 

21 



ship l>etween master ami pupil. With this. Webster's luetition of him 
by name ii\ the preface is in perfect accord ; ami I iun even inclinetl to 
think the Latin line appemknl to Francisco's speech, at the eml of the 
third act of the If'hiU De'zil (.after even the conplet. observe"), due, 
like the seventeen-^\■ord Latin motto from Satiroinastixsmd the " non 
norunt " from A Knii^ht's CoHJtinnn; to tlieir friendly and intimate 
relations, and borro^^■eli from tlie title-jxig^e of tliis very play of 
Dekker's. ' However that be, it nmst be tlie U'Ai/e' Dn'H that 
Dekker's Epistle DeiUcatorie means.- 

The allusions in the U'h itt- Dc-Z'U X.o Bixxnahy Rich, to the Athe-isfs 
Tragedy, and to Jonson's Cafi/ine\ and the nettlevi tone of Webster 
in his preface, all point, then, to a date sliortly precei.li!ig- its publica- 
tion, not earlier at any rate than 1611 : and Dekker's solicitous wvrvls 
in his Epistle Deiiicatorie, still more precisely, to the beginnings of 

im:. ^ 

vi. the duchess of malfl 

The DucArss of Malji w-as first printeti in 1623.* It nuist have been 
on the stag^e, as Dyce pointetl out. longr before, — at least as early as 
March 16th. I6l9. the date of the tleath of Richard Burlxige. who 
appears in the actors' list of the lirst etlition. Further Kick than this 
both Fleay and Dyce' have trievi totlirust the date, but without success. 

Mr. C. Vaughan. however, in his eilition of the play, has offereii. 
" with great diffidence," a sngrgestion which leads, in my opinion, to 
a definite fixing: of tlie date : 

In the ov->etutis speeches there is plainly a historical allusion : and prv>hably to 
conleinpon\ry ex-etits - . . the reference nsay he to the assassination of Cojicini. 
Marshal d'Ancre. by onler of the \-ouJUf kins, l.ouis Xlll. Concini was bitterly 

' Klectere si netjuec* Snv>eiv>s. Acheivnta mo\-ebo. In W". it hiis little connection 
with the context, in D. it fits his title. — Ir this hf noi a jiood /Y^ty. fk<r r>iitff/ is 
in it. 

* The antecedent prvilvibilicv is sreat. If D. and \V. were still friendly, as their 
chanses together from l^xul's to the Oneen's. Web.'s 11'. T*. preface, and the Ix'^m.iw- 
inss indicate, iji \vhi->se \wrk slionld the kindly distH>sevl 1>. t^ more intereste\l than 
in the first unaideil effort of his old protiSsf^? And who more likely than P. tv> ha\r 
seen the text before the actins? 

*Flea>- sa>s '■ the cold winter of 1607-?." oti the strength of the remark in the 
Preface, and of a cotmection he disc«.>\-ers between the joustins l-"Yench ambassador 
of the phvv and M. lrt>ten»nt. who tilted the .-tth of March. lc<tr. 

* U is not in the S. R. 

*Pyce sets the date at a v^entxtr* c. Its^lft. Flea>- (11. 275) says D>-ce is "utterly 
wrons : the date of production was c. 1612. when the ll'kiti' f»r:-i/. with the praise 
of the Kind's men's j>oets. wsis vnibli-thetl." — What Mr. Klejuv means — Mr. Ward 
says he dc»es not know what Mr. Kleay means — is the praise Webster iK'stows uiK>n 
the Kintf"s Men's ix->ets. Shak.. Beau,, and Flet.. etc.. in thei^reface. Now Mai.'i. w* 
know, was acteil by the Kiujr's Men — .'*»»/ is the basis of Mr. Kleay's inference. 



hatetl : and his luunler was skillt'iiUy represented as an act of justice ajjaiust a pub- 
lic enemy and a traitor, l.uiues. who advised the kins: in the matter atid succeetled 
to the power of Concini, made a parade of calliuK' the old coinicillors of H«nry IV 
back to cxinrt. . . . If the suKKestion be well fomided — but it is offered with Rreat 
diffidence — we should be able to fix the date of the iilay more closely, to 1617-18. 

Temple Kd. of MaIJi, p. 146. 

This conjecture let me try to base and establish. First of all, con- 
sider in the text of the first edition,^ instead of the very uncertain 
one of Hazlitt, the two speeches in question : 

Jh-!io: How doe yon like the French court? 
A III: I admire it, 

III seekinjr to reduce both State and IVople 
To a fix'd Order, there iuditious Kin.u 
Begins at home : Ouits first his Royall Tallace 
Ot tlattrins Sicophants of dissolute. 
And infamous persons which he sweetly termes 
His Master's Master-peece (the worke of Heauen) 
. ConsidrinK duely, that a Princes Court 

Is like a common Konntaine, whence should flow. 

Pure silner-droppes in generall : But if t chance 

Some curs'd example poyson't neere the head, 

" Death, and disea.ses throujsh the whole land spread. 

And what is t makes this bles.sed .uouerument. 

But a most piviiidcnt Councell, who dare freely 

Informe him the corr\iption of the tinies? 

Thoush some oth' Court hold it presmnption 

To instruct Princes what they ought to doe. 

It is a noble duety to informe them 

What the.y ought to foresee. Malji. I. 1, first speeches. 

There is one clumsy, obscure passage, but it means, no doubt, that 
the work of cleansing the palace was not his work but that of God 
throuoh him. 

In order to explain the political allusion of the above passage, we 
have, I suppose, to accept one of four alternatives : the allusion might 
have been taken from the source of the play itself. Painter's novel ; or 
it might be an addition of Webster's own, historically in keeping ^\•ith 
tlie story ; or a mere product of the fancy, put in for filling ; or an 
allusion to contemporary affairs. .\s for the first. Painter contains 
nothing of this, except the allu.sion, several times, to Antonio's having 
been in France; there is no mention of a French king and court. ^ 
As to the second, that Webster .should have had in mind the French 
court of .\ntonio's day, whether that of Lewis XII or Francis I, is 
out of the question : Webster generally, as the itistances of the 

' Brit. Mus. Q. 

' There are indeed two bare njeutions of Kins Lewis [XIl] (Painter, vol. III. 
pp. 4 and S"! by jiame : " In the time of King Lewis XII. " " returned to King Lewis." 



DeviVs Laiv-Case or Appius and Virginia show, does not stickle for 
chronology, and indeed in this very play, by his truly Elizabethan 
handling, has got Bandello's chronology into such a state that it would 
be impossible to allude intelligibly, without mentioning them by 
name, to an}' king or court of France historically in keeping. ' Had 
he meant such, moreover, he must certainly have named them for the 
audience' sake. As for the third alternative, that it is a purelj' fan- 
ciful and random statement is highly improbable, unlike Webster and 
his time. True, there are plays of the pastoral or romantic type 
which deal with kings, courts, and people in a land of nowhere, — 
not in France, though, but in Pannonia, Uacia, Africa, or Sicilia ; — ■ 
but alwa\'s in full, as the scene of the very improbable action, not, as 
here, in a passing allusion, directed aivay from the scene of action. 
Passing allusions when without definite names or dates (that is, jokes, 
satirical remarks, political judgments, etc.) prove, even in Roman 
plays, almost alwaj'S to be anachronistic, to be directed toward con- 
temporary affairs. For, by the Elizabethan dramaturgy characters, 
even ideas, language, customs, and civilization, were generally con- 
ceived and represented, not with a historic sense, but — be the time or 
scene of action never so far removed — really as coeval, Elizabethan ; 
hence, the insertion of allusions to contemporar}' affairs and events 
did not jar. King Lear,~ Othello, Romeo and Juliet, He3'wood's 
Rape of Lucrece, Webster's Appius and Viiginia, ancient stories 
though they be, contain such : others would not have been under- 
stood. And in the case of Malfi (we take up the last alternative) an 
allusion to the French king and court, standing at the very beginning 
of the play, with nothing in the shape of title, scene of action, or pre- 
ceding time-references to make the audience think otherwise, could 
not, if it fit at all, mean to the audience, or be intended to mean to 
it, anything else than the contemporary French king and court. 

Does it fit? Let me repeat the story of the D'Ancre affair in brief, 
and then consider Webster's words in detail. Mary de' Medici, as 
queen regent since the assassination of her consort Henry IV, in 

' It must, accordiiiif to Bandello, have been King Lewis's court (see footnote, 
p. 23) that Antonio saw. Yet in III, 3, 8 I^annoy is spoken of as having taken " the 
French king prisoner," which must have been Francis I at Pavia. As Kiesow says 
(pp. 243-4) , the date of action has been brovight down a decade. Moreover, on p. 160, 
in his reference to Gaston de Foix's recovery of Naples in 1501, W., through a care- 
less treatment of his original, as Sampson (p. 386) observes, is making him take a 
city at 12 years old. 

' The " late eclipses " in Lear, I, 2, 112 : " hands not hearts " in Othello, III, 4, 46 ; 
the earthquake in R. & J., I, 3, 23 ; countless ones in Lucrcce ; and some in Corbulo's 
and the L,ictor's talk — such as " prayer book," "lawyers and term time," "the 
suburbs," the oath Appius took as knight, etc., — in A. d-" ?'. 

24 



1610, had, through her own incapacity and by the baneful influence 
of the rapacious, tyrannical Concini and his wife, speedily brought 
France back into a state of anarchy and misery. The nobles were 
indignant and disaffected, and the people heavily burdened and in 
want. The young king, Lewis XIII, moreover, chafed at the conde- 
scension and insolence of the Concini, and at the insignificance of 
his position ; and, incited by his friends, he resolved to assert himself. 
When all was ready, on the morning of April 14th, 1617,' a certain 
captain of the guard. Baron de Vitri, arrested Concini as he was enter- 
ing the Louvre ; and, as the official report averred, on a show of 
resistance, shot him dead. Immediately, a demonstration was made 
by the King's friends, a proclamation issued announcing the King's 
assumption of power into his own hands, and a Council sunmioned of 
his father's ministers. The Concini faction was either arrested, or 
expelled from office and the city ; the Queen Mother herself, relegated 
to Blois. Kow the Council sat dail}' ; virtuous, sober proclamations 
were issued; and an Assembly of Notables was called to Rouen, to 
accomplish what the States-general under Concini had utterly failed 
to do. Everywhere in Paris and through France the news of the event 
was heard with joy, and young Lewis was hailed by his people as the 

Just.'-^ 

fit seeking to reduce both State, and People 
To ajix'd Order, there iuditious King: 
Begins at home : Quits first his Royal I Pal lace 
Of flattring Sicophants, etc. 

This is what Louis did : such was the state of his realm. The last 
States-general rife with dissen.sion and fruitless in outcome, ' a people 
everywhere clamorous, an insurrection raging in the south, and a 
palace swarming with 'sicophants, ' 'dissolute, ' ' infamous ' Italians and 
Spaniards, — such a spectacle meant neither to French nor to English 
eyes a ' fix' d order.' And one of the first steps Lewis took to better 
it was to purge the palace, — to imprison Barbin, Mangot, ' La Place, 
Oquincourt, Nardy, Concini's wife and some of his confidants'', and 

' Brockh .us, 14th ed., art. Ancre; Martin say.s (ed. 1844), vol. XII, p. 345, the 24lh, 
and Biog. Gin. (ed. 1855), the same. Brock, must be rigrht, for the first entry in the 
S. R. (see below, p. 29, note) is on the 17th. 

* Martin, ed. 1858, tome XI, pp. 118-19. Bazin, France sous Louis Xlfl. Paris, 1840, 
t. II, p. 2 f. There is nothing ambiguous in the attitude of all France. " Chacun 
vantait le coup d'essai de Louis." 

^ Gardiner, 11, p. 315; Martin, ed. 1858, XI, 86; and Louis's own words in his 
Declaration (lui convoque a Rouen ime as.sembl^e de Notables, Isambert et Decrusy, 
Recueil General, t. XVI, p. 108 f : "n'avaient produit autre fruit sinon que les remon- 
strances, plaints, et dol^ances." * Martin, ed. 1858, tome XI, pp. 117-18' 

' Relation F.xacte de Tout ce Qtii s'est Passe a la Afort du A/areschal D' Ancre in 
Michaud et Poujoulat, .S^rie II, t. V, p. 464. Martin says Mangot was destitue only. 

25 



to have proclaimed that evening, at the sound of the trumpet, that all 
those in the service of Concini should leave the city on pain of death. 
The Spanish Ambassador he directed to refrain from acting- further as 
'major-domo to the reigning queen.'' The Queen herself, one of 
the worst of the crev^^, he kept, after the loss of her greatest sicophant, 
under surveillance, and shortly relegated to Blois.- And in one of his 
first proclamations he made known ' that he had besought the queen, 
his lady and mother, to grant that he himself from now on take in 
hand the manage of the state, in order that he might rescue it from 
the straits to which the evil counsels she had followed had reduced it. '^ 

Which he S7veetly ternies 
His Master'' s Master-peece {the 7voyke of Heaueii) . 

The source of this notion of Webster's is, I think, the French King's 
Letter to the Parliament of Rouan, in 1617 ' : 

A disseigne which they so wrought and efTected, that hitherto Wee carried but 
onely the bare Name of, and title of a KinR : . . . Which Cod of his infinite bountie 
giving Us the grace at last to discerne, and pointing out unto Us as it were with his 
omnipotent finger, the imminent perill that hung over our person and .State, 
through such an insatiable and irregular ambition : Wee gave testimonie at length 
of our apprehension at this point, . . . .\et were Wee enforced in all our exterior 
actions, to disguise and cover that, which inwardly in heart Wee determined and 
resolved upon, while it might please the same our good God to open us a fit 7i'ay. and 
convenient opportunity to apply thereunto some prevalent remedy. . . . Moved I say, 
by these just and most weightie considerations and by the heavenly instinct, that God 
upon this occasion put into oui- heart : Wee resolved to secure Our self of the person 
of the said Marshall D'Ancre, giving express charge to Sieur de Vitry, Captaine of 
Our Guards, to apprehend and arrest him within Our Castle of the Louvre. The 
which Our pleasure hee intending to put into execution, the said Marshall (who 
according to his accustomed manner had many followers about him) himself with 
some others of his company made offer to resist : whereupon certain bullets, etc. ° 

' Relation Exacte. p. 470. 

^ .See her despicable conduct in Martin above. And see Martin, ed. 1844(1 quote this 
because ed. 1858 has since become inaccessible to me), XII, 345, note, where account 
is taken of the popular opinion of illicit relations between her and Concini. In fact, 
there is quite enough in the fame of the queen and her minions in that day, both in 
France and in England, to warrant W.'s phra.ses, " di.ssolute and infamous per.sons," 
" curs 't example." 

=• Martin, ed. 1858, t. XI, p. 119, " les mauvais con.seils dont elle setait servie." 
■ * In the Brit. Mus., marked 8050, bbb. .56, Reg. Apr. 23rd, 1617, — a proof of the 
popular interest in P^ng. — The italics in this pa.s.sage are mine. 

' The interpretation thus offered for "Which . . . Heauen " above — that the 
cleansing of the palace, etc., was God's work through him — seems to me the more 
certain as I consider other interpretations. Vaughan, who did not take his own 
suggestion seriously, thinks the antecedent of ivhich to he P'allace.' And Sampson 
(p. 385) : " possibly ' order,' but probably ' persons,' /. e., man, being the chief work 
of the creator." That is, this king, whoever he be, " .sweetly termes " the.se " infa- 
mous persons " he is cha.sing away, his Master's Masterpieces! The neatness with 

. 26 



And ?i>/ia( ts V makes this blessed gouernmenl , 
liiit a most firom'denf Councell, 7v/io dare freely 
I II f urine liiin the corruption of the tinies /' 

On his first appearance, immediately after the murder, tlie Kinj^ 
cried, Lou6 soit Dieu, me voyla Roy: qu'on m'aille querir les vieux 
serviteurs du feu Roy mon pere, et anciens conseillers de mon conseil 
d'Estat. C'est par le conseil de ceux-la que je me veux fj^ouverner 
desormais.' He was as good as his word. Villeroi, Jeannin, du Vair, 
de vSillcri and his son were sunnnoned ; the Concini faction, except 
Richelieu, were expelled ; and the Council sat daily.'- The King met 
with them, and is recorded as having given judicious and worth}' 
opinions.' When appealed to by his subjects about ini])ortant meas- 
ures, he constantly deferred all promises till he should have delib- 
erated with his council . ' And on the 4th of Octol)er, 1617, he issued 
an edict'' convoking an Assembly of Notables at Rouen, of 59 mem- 
bers only, ^-not a State.s-general but a " council," rather, — ' a body 
selected and small enough,' according to his words, 'to be wieldy and 
practical, which should consider the reformation of tlic abuses which 
are to be found in all the orders of the realm' : and he solemnly 
adjures them all, by the authority God has given him over them, que 
sans autres respect ni consideration quelquon()ue, crainte on ddsir de 
plaire ou complaire a personne, ils nous donnent en toutes franchise 
et sinc6rit61es conseils qu'ils jugeront en leurs consciences les plus 
salutaires et convenables. As for English reports, in A True Recital 
of Those T/iin_i^s That Have Been Done in the Court of France since 
the Death of Marshall IT Ancre, lyondon, 1617,'' the King is reported 
assaying, " that he would give order to his Councill that the abuses 
that had crept into hi.s affairs should be remedied by good advice and 
counsell."' And in A True Relation of the Deserved Death of the 
Marquis d'Ancre, etc., 1617," a full account, quite similar to the 
PVench, is given of the summoning of the Council and of the recall 
of Villeroi. 

The allusion fits, then, — fits as well as the vague language addre.s.sed 
to an audience which understands, and describing in a few lines, not 
events, but mere sober effects and conditions, would permit. Now it 

which K. I^ewis XIII's words fit the passatic when we construe it as, to make .sense, 
it must be construed — which referriuBT to the clause " Quits . . . persons" — is to 
my mind conent argument that W. here had thcin in mind. 

' Relation Exacte, Mich.et Pou., V, p. 458. 

'' Relation Kxacte, pp. 466. 467, 469, 470, 471, 47J : often two or three times a day. 

' Relation Kxacte, i)p. 466, 467. " Registered May Hth. 

* Relation Kxacte, pp.462 a, 462 h. ' Pp. 11, 12. 

" In Isamhert et Decrusy, t. XVI. p. 108 f. " P. 14, Hrit. Mus. copy. 

27 



could fit no other possible king or court of France, and no other period 
than shortly after April, 1617. Before that, as far back as the death 
of Henry IV, in 1610, there was no king in power, and no state of 
affairs an Englishman would " admire." And by a year after April, 
1617, it would have been evident that Lewis XIII had only fallen into 
the hands of another set of minions.' But within the year the court 
and king of France would seem, especially so far away as in England, 
as Webster describes them. Lewis was beginning with such promise : 
he had put an end to the rebellion in the south, and had made peace 
between Savoy and Spain -; himself freed from Spanish control, he 
was now busied with measures of justice, and schemes of legislation 
and improvement ; he bore as yet the title of the Just. The allusion 
can be to no other than him . 

But did England feel like France ? What warrant for our finding 
admiration of Lewis in Webster is there in what we know of the Eng- 
lish attitude? " The cry of exultation which was raised in France," 
says Mr. Gardiner, •'■ ' ' was echoed in all Protestant lands. The Queen- 
Mother had alwaj^s been regarded as the chief supporter of the Spanish 
partv. Even James was carried away by the tide, and for once found 
himself giving expression to opinions in complete accordance with 
those of Win wood and Raleigh. . . . James wrote to congratulate the 
young sovereign of France." And the interest of the people is 
attested by the activity of the press. A dozen or tnore of pamphlets 
relating to the affair, bearing the date of 1617, are still preserved in 
the British Museum^; and there are seven entries of books in the 
Stationers' Register, from the 17th of April to the 3rd of June, 1617, 
three of which are of books not to be identified with an}^ of those pre- 



^ After the abrupt dissolution of the Assemblte at Rouen, in the spring and sum- 
mer of 1618, when the duplicity, tyranny, and rapacity of L,uynescame to light, and 
the king broke his promises (Martin, ed. 1844, XII, 364-7). Whereas (XII, 353, 359) 
" I<e gouvernement de Louis XIII avait tout propice au debut "; " les premiers temps 
du gouvernement . . . furent cependant assez prosperes." 

* -Signed at Pavia, Oct. 9th, 1617. Bazin, Louis Xllf, t. II, p. 37. Cf. Martin, ed. 1844, 
XII, p. 359, where the good effect, at home and abroad, of I,ewis's conduct in this 
connection is discussed. ^ Gardiner, III, p. 109. 

* Ten bound together, marked 8050. bbb. 56. Besides those already cited : 
1. The True Relation of the Deserved Death of that Base and Insolent Tryant, The 
Marquis d'Ancre, the most unworthie Marshall of France, etc. 2. Oration made unto 
the French King by Deputies of the National Synode of the Reformed Church. 3. Last 

Will and Testament of the Marquis, etc. 4. Arraignment of Marquis, etc. 5. Funeral 
Obsequies and Buriall of the Marquis, etc. 6. The Ghost of the Marquisse D'Ancre 
. . . and Mosequin a deluding spirit by whovie her husband 'cas misled. Another, of 
the same date, is The Tears of the Marshall D'Ancre's Wife, shed for the death of her 
husband. —This " True Relation " (the first entered in .S. R., see below) gives a very 
circumstantial account of all events, including the purging of the palace. 

28 



served. The entries themselves indicate the keenest popular interest, 
for the first of them are entered only three or four da\'s after the 
event itself ; and the titles betray naively the animus of the writers 
and of their public. ^ Even the stage responded, for, on June 22nd 
1617, the Privy Council wrote to Sir George Buc, Master of the Revels, 
' ' to have special care that an enterlude concerning the late Marquis 
D'Ancre should not be performed." - 

The evidence, then, is prett}^ conclusive that Rlalfi alludes to Lewis 
XIII, at a time not long after the assassination of Concini ; and itself, 
therefore, falls within the year 1617, after April. To this let me add, 
however, yet one argument. ^ Orazio Busino, chaplain to Pietro 
Contarini, Venetian Ambassador, left among his manuscripts, now 
preserved in the \Jihxaxy of St. Mark, ' one entitled Anglipotrida, a 
miscellaneous collection of notes on his experiences in England. In 
the ' second appendix ' there is this : 

Prendono"giuoco grli Ingrlesi della nostra religrione come di cosa detestabile, et 
superstitiosa, ne niai rappresentano qtialsivogliaattioiiepubblica, sia pura Tragisati- 
ricomica, che non iuserischiiio deiitro uitij, et scelleragini di q»lche religioso catol- 
ico, facendone risate, et molti scherni, con lor gusto, et raniarico de' buoiii", fu 
appunto veduto dai nostri, in una Commedia introdur' un frate franciscano, astuto, et 
ripieno di varie impieta, cosi d'avaritia come di libidine ; et il tutto poi riusci in una 
Tragedia, facendoli mozzar la vista in scena. Un altra volta rappresentarono la 
grandezza d'un card.'" con li habiti formali, et proprij molti belli, et ricchi, con la 
sua Corte, facendo in scena erger un Altare, dove finse di far orat."", ordinando una 
processione ; et poi lo ridussero in pubblico con una Meretrice in seno. Dimostro di 
dar il Velleno ad una sua sorella, per interesse d'honore; et d'andar in oltre alia 
guerra, con depponer prima I'habito cardinalitio sopra I'altare col mezzo de' suoi 
Cappell."' con gravita, et finalm."'°si fece cingerelaspada, metterlaserpa,^ con tan to 
garbo, che niente piu : et tutto ci6 fanno in sprezzo, delle grandezze ecclesiast.'"' vili- 
pese, et odiate a morte in q°sto Regno. Di Londra a' 7 feb.*'° 1618. 



^ The first entries are actually Apr. 17th, A True Relation of the Death of the 
Marqnis D'Ancre. and Apr. 23rd. The first, on the third day after, indicates a 
journalistic enterprise almost unbelievable of that day. The entries and pamphlets 
all of one accord approve the deed. 

' Fleay, Hist. Stage, p. 309. Mr. Fleay adds, " no doubt Thierry and Theodoret." 
There is much doubt, though. Cf. Thorndike's Influence of B. & F. on Shak.. p. 75 f. 
And I would add to his arguments that the name de Vitri occurs as that of a 
character in Chap. 's Trag. of Byron, pub. 1608; and that the Conspiracy of Byron , 
pub. at the same time, contains an astrologer and astrology, as do others of Chap.'s 
plays. 

^ A writer in the Quarterly Rev. for 1859, in his review of a translation of Busino's 
journals and despatches by Rawdon Brown (" not published " then, and so far as I 
can discover at the Brit. Mus. still not pub.), adds in a note that Busino describes a 
play in 1618 that must be Malfi. Ward repeats this. III, p. 59. 

•* CI. VII. Cod. M. C. XXII. 

^ Serpa it is, very distinctly written. No suitable meaning is to be found in any 
dictionary that has come to my notice. Nor have Venetians whom I have asked 
been able to explain it. It must mean sciarpa, which is the Italian for scarf, mitt- 

29 



Busino does not say he himself saw the play ; and if he did, it is 
not likely that he understood much of it. The movements on the 
stage are what impressed him and what he describes. With this in 
mind, nothing could seem to fit Busino's description better than Malfi. 
In Act II, sc. 4, Webster's Cardinal appears with his mistress Julia 
alone, ' and very likely vA'Ca her in his lap : and in Act III, sc. 4, he 
goes through all the ceremony of laying aside ecclesiastical vest- 
ments, with the assistance of ' churchmen,' and of accoutring himself 
with ' sword, ' shield, and spurs. His making show of giving poison 
to his sister in the interest of her honor (if it means that) might be 
the banishment of the duchess in dumb-show, in the same scene, '^ as 
it appeared to an Italian spectator ; and the erection of the altar and 
the prayer might easily be some of the ' ' business ' ' introduced in one 
of several scenes in the play, as at the beginning of Act II, sc. 2, he 
himself reappearing immediately after with Julia in his lap. True, 
the evidence is not conclusive ; though I\Ialfi fits the description far 
better than any other known play, the real play may not have come 
down to us. But the date of that play, at any rate, harmonizes admir- 
ably with that which we had already attained for Malfi — the latter 
half of the year 1617. « 

VII. THE DEVIL'S LAW-CASE. 

The DeviVs Late-Case was published in 1623, again without register- 
ing at the Stationers'. Fleay * comes at the date 1610 by adding 
Romelio's 38 years of age to the year of his birth " (the year after 
Lepanto, /. e., 1572) ; and by dra\\dng conclusions to the same effect 
from the waiting- woman's asseverations — though she is lying! — as 
to her remembering two great frosts, three great plagues, and the 

tary scarf. This in the Venetian dialect takes the form siarfia or sierpa. See 
Boerio, Di2. del dial etto I'enez.. Venezia, 1856. This meaning suits the text admir- 
ably. It was suggested by Dr. Hartmann. 

' Also in V, 2. 

" This and the investiture, obser\-e, are linked together in Busino's account. 

^ The date of this account (see above) is Feb. 7, 1618. Busino says (see above) un 
alira volta. as if some time ago. The embassy started, according to his Relazione 
del P'iaggio, .Sept. 2nd, 1617 ; and his first letter from London he dates Oct. 8th, 1617. — 
The work of Mr. Sampson on the dates of the pla\s IV. D. and Mai. seems rather 
fruitless, particularly in \'iew of his conclusion that the date of the publishing of 
W. D. (1612) may be the date of the composition of Mai., and his doubt whether 
Mai. may not have preceded IV. D.! (xliv). And think of settling the date of 
W. D. by allusions to Ariosto so uncertain as on p. 187 (cf. xD, or by an allusion 
to Verton's mulberry -plan ting, in 1609, which amounts to the word silkworm (pp. 188 
and xl) ! 

■* Biog. Chr., II, 272-3. ^ D. L. C. IV, 2 (not II, 4, as Fleay says), pp. 87, 93, 95. 

30 



taking of Calais. As if the date of the action had to be coincident 
with that of the first performance ; or as if Webster's audiences, or he 
himself, sat and counted up time-references ! 

More to the point is the allusion, found by Dyce, to the Massacre of 
Amboyna, Feb., 1623 ^: 

Sec. Surg. How? go to the East Indies! and so many Hollanders Rone to fetch 
sauce for their pickled herrings ! some have been peppered there too lately. 

D. L. C, p. 80. 

Yet the connection is impossible, for it is now known, as Mr. Fleay^ 
points out, that the news of the massacre did not reach England until 
May, 1624. But Dyce's scent was, as usual, true; he rightly recog- 
nized an allusion to contemporary affairs, and he could have verified 
it, had he only turned back a little, to the earlier troubles between the 
English and Dutch in the East Indies. Such verification is to be 
found, I think, in Gardiner : 

In August [1619] the ' Star ' arrived from England bringing news of the opening 
of negotiations in I,ondon. As no treaty had been signed at the date of its depart- 
ure, the Dutch seized the vessel, and despatched six ships to Sumatra to look out for 
English traders. On the coast they found four of the Companj''s vessels busily 
engaged in lading pepper. The captain of one of these, the 'Bear,' had met Sir 
Thomas Roe at the Cape on his return from India. It happened that a new Dutch 
admiral also had been there on his outward voyage, with whom Roe had opened 
communications, which had ended in an agreement that hostilities should be sus- 
pended till the result of the negotiations in I^ondon could be known. In the .sudden- 
ness of the attack this agreement was either not produced, or was disregarded. One 
of the English ships, the ' Dragon,' was forced to surrender, after a combat of an 
hour's duration, and the other three were too much encumbered with their lading 
even to attempt a defence. The prisoners were treated with the greatest inhumanity, 
and many of the wounded died from exposure to the rain upon the open deck. 
Amongst the prizes on board, the Dutch sailors found a handsome knife, which had 
been sent out as a present from the King to the native sovereign of Acheen. They 
carried it about the deck in uproarious procession, shouting out at the top of their 
voices, " Thou hast lost thy dagger. Jemmy." A few days later two other English 
vessels were taken at Patani, and the captain of one of them w^as killed. 

Vol. Ill, pp. lSO-1. 

This, you see, was no insignificant event ; it must have excited 
public interest ; and the pun on " pepper " ' would have been, then as 
now, inevitable. Now the news of Amboyna reached England, as we 
have seen, after a j'ear and three months ; that of the treaty .signed 
June 2nd, 1619, reached the East Indies on March 8th of the following 
year^: so, allowing the same interval, we may reckon the backward 
limit of the DevW s Law-Case to be the end of 1620. 



' Dyce says wrongly, 1622. " Biog. Chr.. II, 272 : cf. Gardiner, vol. V, p. 242. 

^ That the verb " pepper " was then commonly thus used is proved by / Hen. IV, 
II, 4, 212 : V, 3, 37 : /?. & J., Ill, 1. 102 ; Ho.tT., 1. 1473 ; Ma.ss. Virg. Mart., p. 18 : Hum. 
I.ient.. p. 238 ; etc. ■* fiardiner. Vol. Ill, p. 181. 



31 



vSliould the (late be rather thrust on, however, nearer the forward 
limit ? vSuch a question is to be raised in connection with the possible 
indebtedness of the DeviV s Law-Case to the SpamsJi Curate, ^ or to 
the Fair Dlaid of the Inn. The last is entirely to be excluded from 
consideration by reason of explicit mention of the Massacre of 
Amboyna,^ and its having been licensed (though written, of course, 
earlier)-' onh' in 1626.' And as for the Spanish Curate and the 
Devil's Lazv-Case, they may ver}' well have been produced independ- 
ently, deriving the law-case stor\% their only point of contact, the one 
only from Gerarcio, and the other from the old play, Lust's Dominion ; 
or the DeviVs Law-Case itself may have influenced the Spanish 
Curate.'' However that be, it is to be considered improbable that the 
DeviP s Lazv-Case followed the Spanish Curate, by reason of two con- 
siderations : first, the lack of any reference to Dutch or East India 
troubles in the Spanish Curate, and the presence of so pointed a refer- 
ence — ' ' latel}' " — in the DeviVs Law-Case ; second, the nature of the 
vicissitudes of the Queen's Men. As to the latter point, Webster's 
play, according to the title-page, was " approvedly well Acted by her 
Majesties Servants. ' ' Now Queen Anne died in March, 1619, and there 
were no real Queen's Servants again till the time of Henrietta, June, 
1625.** Still hanging together, however, on the Sthx)f July, 1622, they 
obtained a Privy Seal for a new company to be called the "Children 
of the Revels." ■ In the meantime they had continued to act at the 
Red BulP ; but under what name? Under the old one of Queen's 
Servants, of course, until they received the patent for the new^ one.* 
It must have been before that, therefore, that they acted the DeviP s 
Law-Case?^ The date of the play must be from the end of 1620 to 
July, 1622. 

» Uc. by Herbert, Oct. 24, 1622 (Fleay, Hist., p. 301). 
" B. & F.. Works, II, p. 374. 

^ Herbert says expressly, "by Fletcher": so, before his death, Aug. 1625. And 
after Amboyna : so after May, 1624. 

* In Herbert's Office Book, — Jan. 22nd, 1626. 

^ I.e., Gerardo the Uitfortniiaie Sfiatiiai-d, iratislated hy Leouatd Dig.ties (L,ondon, 
1622) , the greneral source of the Sp. Cur. For a discussion of this whole matter see 
below. Chap. IV. 

* I'leay's Hist., p. 321. ' Though a men's company, Fleay's Hist., p. 270. 
' Fleay's Hist., p. 272. I know no other authority, yet Fleay must be right. The 

D. L. C, as we have seen, must be considerably later than Mar. 2nd, 1619, and yet it 
was acted by " Her Majesties Ser\'ants." 

* Mr. Fleay seems of the opinion that at Queen Anne's death the Company went 
on playing without any name. Of the acting of D. I.. C. he says, simply, "and 
therefore before 1619." Mr. Sidney I<ee repeats this {Diet. Nat. Biog., art. Webster) . 

'" The company may, of course, have kept the old name popularly, even after the 
Privy Seal: but not likely, after an official designation was at hand, on the title- 

32 



VIII. APPIUS AND VIRGINIA. 

Appius and Virginia was first published, so far as is known, in 
1654. An Appius and Virginia stands last in a list of their own 
plays, drawn up in August, 1639, by William Beeston, governor of the 
Cockpit Company ' ; and as the only other Appius and Virginia 
known is antiquated, dull, and childish, a specimen not possibly to be 
played by a royal company in the day of Massinger and Shirley, this 
must be Webster's.- No other precise data are at hand. But the 
play is not mentioned in the ^x^ia.Q& to \}i\^ DeviV s Law-Case ; and 
that it was written after that, after 1623, appears from the evidence 
(to be produced later) '■ that it is indebted to Shakspere, especially to 
his Roman plays, and in so precise and circumstantial a manner as to 
indicate the use of the First Folio. A nearer forward limit than that 
of Beeston's list is unattainable, for the date of Webster's death is 
unknown.'* We must content ourselves, therefore, with the date 
1623-39.^ ■ 

IX. A CURE FOR A CUCKOLD. 

Webster and Rowley's Cure for a Cuckold was first published in 
1661. It contains an allusion, long recognized, to Middleton and 
Rowlej^'s Fair Quarrel : 

Pett. ■ . ■ and there falls in league with a wench. 

Com p. A Tweak or Bronstrops : I learned that name in a play. C. C, IV, 1, p. 64. 

l^s/t. What is my si.ster, centaur? 

Co/'s Tr. I say thy sister is a bronstrops. 

Ush. A bronstrops? 

Chough. Tutor, tutor. — tell me the English of that ; what is a bronstrops, pray ? 

CoVs Tr. A bronstrops is in English a hippocrene. F. Q., IV, 1, 105-112. 

page, especially, I think, as that of the "Queen of Bohemia's players " (?. <?., I<ady 
Elizabeth's, so-called after she became such in Nov. 1619) would have made it rather 
convenient to give up a designation which long had had no meaning, was confusing, 
and now had no justification. In any case, the Queen's Men. existed, even under the 
new name, only till July or Aug., 1623 (Fleay, Hist., 299, 301), — the absolute forward 
limit, then, for our play. 

' Given in Fleay 's Hist. .Stage, p. 357 ; pre.^erved in the Lord Chamberlain's office. 

° Appius and Virginia, Tragi-Comedy, by R. B., 4to, 1576. — Halliwell (p. 21) 
thinks it is the old play. 

^ See below. Chap. IV, Sect. III. 

* See below, pp. 41-43. 

" Mr. Fleay 's work on Webster is, I suppose, on his lowest level. Oi A.& F". he 
says: "From its allusion, at the end, to Lucrece [Heywood's play of 1608], would 
seem to date c. 1609. It was undoubtedly a play acted by Queen Anne's men, and 
passed with the While Devil to Queen Henrietta's." This alhusion to Hey. amounts 
to the name " L,ucretia " ; and there is not a tittle of evidence to show that the play 
was acted by Queen Anne's. 

33 



As the iHiir Qiian'el first appeared in ])ritil in 1617, this may be 
considered a fairly certain backward limit. But there is a nearer. 
The plot of Webster's portion is in part derived, as we shall yet prove/ 
from Massinj^er's ParliiXDWut of Loir. This play was licensed for the 
Cock])it on Nov. 3rd, 1624. The only forward limit, however, of the 
Cure for a CiiclcoliI i\i^ ot .Ippius u>id I'ir^iiiin, is the date of Web- 
ster's death, whatever that may be. 

X. TIIK AUTHORvSHir t)!' THK DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 

It remains to consider the authenticity of three plays — the Cure for 
a Cuckold, the T/inuiaii U'o/n/er, and T/ie IVeakest Goeth to the Wall. 

The Weakest Goeth to the Wall, registered aiid published in 1600, is 
easily disposed of. Neither title-page nor stationers' entry mentions 
the author. The play itself shows not the slightest trace of Webster's 
hand, and it was first attributed to him (by Kdward Phillips, a 
nephew of Milton) so late as 1675.-' "A great mistake," says the 
judicious Langbaine. ' 

The 0/;f /<;/■(/ CV/r ,<•('/(/ and the Thracian Wonder luv si be consid- 
ered, so far as external evidence is concerned, together. Both were 
first published by Francis Kirkman in 1661. Both, evidently, were 
sent to press at about the same time, for the title-pages, with the ex- 
ception of bare title, are, both in phrase and typography, exactly 
alike. ' Both bear the names of John Webster and William Rowley. 
Both have been challenged by most critics of the century ; and hardly 
any one supported the authenticity of either till Mr. Gosse asserted 
the artistic worth of the main-i)lot of the Cure for a Cuckold, and, on 
that basis, its authenticitv.'' 



' See below, Clian. 1\". Soil. I. 

■ Phillips's T/ifiitium Poetainiii, l(i75, pp. 116-17, whore he assigns to him also the 
j\obIf Sttaiigrt , .\nf Trick to C/ifaf the Dn<il. and H'onian -fill have her Will 
(the secoiul probably by association with />. L. C). — Hazlilt wrongly states (vol. 
I, p. xx) that the attribntion rests on the authority of Winstanley, in 16S7. 

' P. 510. He says it of Phillips, in rejrard not only to the Weakest but also the 
Noble Stranser, Nrti' Trick to Cheat the De^'il, and tl'oman "will have her Will. 

* A Cure for a Cuckold A Pleasant Conied.v .-Is it hath been sex'eral times Acted with 
iiieat Applause. Written by John Webster and William Rowley. Placere Cupio. 
London. P> in ted by Tho. Johnson, and are to be sold by Francis Kirkman. at his 
Shop at the Sign of John Fletchers Head. o~rr against the Angcl-Inne. on the Back 
side of St. Clements, without Temple Far 1661. — The Thracian Wonder. A Comical 
l/r.<:tory, — and the rest iilcntical. .See the reproiluctions of the orininal title-pages 
in Uaz., vol. IV, pp. 1 atid 115. There is no deviation except 'at /.t)«(/t>«. 

• I'-or Gosse, see below ; Ward in his History, Symonds in introd. to Mer. Webster, 
l.ec in Did. Nat. Bios., art. Webster, who hesitatinsrb' follow Gosse; Bullen in 
Middlelon, footnote to /•'. C'.. IV, 1. 105, 112 ; Kleay. Kor Dyce. see below, p. 37. 

34 



The attribution, for which Kirkiiian is responsible, is, indeed, late. 
But it is unjustifiable to hold, with Fleay and others, that consequently 
it is worthless' (for a late attribution by the first publisher is a very 
different matter from a late attribution by a mere uncritical critic such 
as Phillips); or that, if it can be proved wrong in regard to one of the 
plays, it must therefore be wrong in regard to the other. There could 
be no /rrt/^i/ intended, as there might be in the case of more popular 
names, such as vShakspere - or Fletcher ; and there must be some rea- 
son other than fraud or caprice for associating with the name of Rowley 
— not Middleton's, Fletcher's, Ford's, Massinger's, or Dekker's ' — 
but'Webster's. Very likely, Kirkman had the manuscripts in his hands, 
and one of the two, at least, avouched this unprecedented partnership. 
For that he had some basis of fact to go on, is proved by what Mr. 
Fleay and everyone concede — Rowley's unmistakable touch in the 
Cure for a Cuckold:'' 

How did Webster's name get associated with Rowley's? The same 
story as that of the Thracian Wonder, as Collier has pointed out, 



' Fleay. II. 273. 

* As is actually the case with the Birth of Merlin, pub. by Kirkman in 1562, and 
attributed to Shak. and Rowley. 

^ With Middleton's, of counse, in many plays ; with Fletcher's in the Maid in Ike 
Mill (Herbert's office book, Chalmers's .Supp. Apol., ed. 1799, p. 21.'i) ; with Dekker's 
and Fords in Edmonton : with Massing-er's in the The Old Law. 

•"Fleay, II, p. 99; Ward ; Seccombe in the Diet. Nat. Biog., " Rowley "; etc. That 
is, R. is the author of the under-plot, the story of Compass, his wife, her child, and 
Frankford. This is altogether apart from the main-plot, not only in subject and 
style, but also in structure; Frankford's being a brother-in-law of Woodruff is the 
only link between the two. Mr. Edmund Gosse, the first critic to take a stand for 
Webster's authorship of the main-plot, separated it from the under-plot — a very 
simple business of subtraction, — and in his edition of the main-plot, which 
he calls Love's Graduate (Oxford, 1885), takes honor to himself for his discovery. 
The di.scovery amounts to Mr. Gosse's oracular reassertion of Kirkman's title- 
page. 

R.'s author.ship of the under-plot is indicated by the tweak and bronstrops passage 
quoted from his previous play, and by the style in every scene. The extreme, yet 
laughable, absurdity of Compass's attitude to his " son," of his persisting in spite 
of all the evidence to the contrary, which he has intellectually accepted, in calling 
himself " father " (IV, 3, p. 77, "when the father is beyond sea as this was"), is 
paralleled by the Clown in the Birth of Merlin, who can't get over the wonder of it 
that his sister should be got with child and he not know of it (II, 1, 1. 35 f); or 
(though here with a harder, more cynical touch) by Gnotho, who comes " crowding 
on afore " with a band of fiddlers, leading his old wife to her grave, and his new- 
chosen bride to the wedding, and, when the duke plainly tells him the law that the 
superannuated should die is now abolished, cries in eager hurry, " I '11 talk further 
with your grace when I come back from church : in the meantime you know what 
to do with the old woman." Of the same stripe are Compass's reasonings before 
the lawyers (IV, 1). 

35 



appeared in 1617, ' with the title, '"The most pleasant and delightful 
Historie of Cnran, Prince of Danske, and the Fayre Princesse Argen- 
tile, Daughter and Heyre of Adelbright, sometime King of Northum- 
berland. This was by one William Webster. Now Kirkman, knowing 
the stor}-, — for Kirkman, as his advertisements, or addresses to the 
reader, - and his catalogue of Elizabethan plays '•'• prove, was a reading 
man, — might have confused the names of William Webster and John 
Webster, or put for the unknown the known as a guess. But this is 
not likely, it seems to me, unless the manuscript of the onl}- other play 
of John Webster's he ever published, the Cure for a Cuckold^ which 
he was publishing, too, as the title-pages show, at this very time, had 
alreadv John Webster's name attached. 

And how, on the other hand, did Rowley's ' name get on the title- 
page of the Thracian Wonder, which shows not one trace of his hand ? 
This play is already assigned to one author — Webster, — and a second, 
in a matter of guessing, would be superfluous. Rowley's name, we 
may rest assured, Kirkman never would have thought of adding to 
Webster's on the title-page of the Thracian Wonder, were it not 
already connected with Webster's in the only possible instance of 
such connection, — his manuscript of the Cure for a Cuckold. 

On either hand, then, external evidence intimates that Kirkman 
was neither cheating nor blindly guessing — that he erred in the case 
of the Thracian Wonder only through the influence of authority in 
the case of the Cure for a Cuckold. Internal evidence confirms this. 
The Thracian Wonder shows not the slightest trace of either Rowley's 
or Webster's hand : neither ever wrote in the pastoral-idyllic style ; 
neither ever wrote anything soft and foolish and vulgarly absurd. 
The ogre of a king belching out destruction in his court, and among 
the shepherds' cotes meek as any lamb ; telling the Sicilian ambas- 

' See Haz., IV, pp. 117-18. Collier and Dyce rest content, however, merely with the 
theory of the confusion of Wni. with John Webster, and with the assertion that the 
T. IV. contains no trace of W.'s hand. 

* See, for instance, that to the Cure for a Cuckold in Haz. Web. 

^ True and perfect and exact Catalogue of all the the Comedies, Tragedies, and 
Tragi-comedies, etc., that 7vere ever yet printed and published till this present year 1671 
(Brit. Mus.). 

* Fleay thinks the association of W.'s with R.'s name prima facie evidence of error ; 
" They never worked together." (11,99.) What that amounts to is, there are no 
other title-pages bearing their names ! To my mind, on the contrary, the association 
of Webster's name with Rowley's is presumptive evidence in favor of itself. In the 
first place, Webster's name could not have got there through being mistaken for any 
of those names otherwise associated with Rowley, — Middlefon, Ford, Massinger, 
etc., — for the play bears no sign of their hand. In the second, there is no other 
Rowley-Webster play from which this play could be named by analogy. Were 
there any other, I should be suspicious. 

36 



sador on one page he " will lash his king with iron rods," and on the 
next surrendering to him " in palmer's weeds " '; the silly, love-sick 
shepherds scampering hither and thither and up trees ; the chorus 
blabbing, and Time entering with his hour-glass to "bar" it'-^; and, 
above all, the very foolish battle wherein the vSicilian prince, injured 
husband of the ogre-king's daughter, has a mind to fight him at the 
head of his shepherds, but very suddenly and unreasonably joins with 
him against his own father of Sicily, yet, in the midst of the fray, 
leaving his indignant son behind as general, wheels over to the other 
side, and, after many skirmishes, in which his love-lorn, raving 
shepherds get the best of him, ends the conflict with a hand-to-hand 
fight with his son, — when lo, father, son, grandfather, grandson, 
husband, and wife rush all to a sudden recognition, none the worse for 
the wear ! Such a ' ' Wonder ' ' as this is in a vein foreign to our 
authors. And the style is equally so. Men come in and fall down 
dead with the plague : 

Sec. Ijird. Mercy, he 's dead ! 

Sophos. Bless me ! I fear I ha\'e taken the infection. 



is this a time for music ? 
And so it is indeed, for every one 
Is ready to kick up his heels. S_Wilhin. Oh I oh ! oh ! ] 

r. IV., II, l,p. 137-9. 
Hail to those sweet eyes. 
That shine celestial wonder ; 
From thence do flames arise. 
Bum my poor heart asunder ; 
Now it fries. T. M'., II, 4. 

Surely, whether on behalf of Webster or of Rowley, there is no rea.son 
to accept the T/iracian IVotider.'' 

It is quite otherwise with the Cure for a Cuckold. Dyce long ago 
suggested that Webster's hand might be traced in it*; but of evi- 
dence on the subject there has hitherto been none. Yet, viewed in 
the light of a study of Webster's development and of his relation to 
his sources, internal evidence declares as decisively for Webster's 
authorship in the main-plot as for Rowley's in the under-plot. The 
Cure for a Cuckold is really not more unlike Webster's other work 
than Appius and Virginia, which passes unchallenged. The diffi- 
culty of critics hitherto lies in a preconceived, vague, romantic notion 

' III. 1, p. 160, and III, 2, p. 163. 
= I, 3, p. 136. 

' As Fleay, Dyce, Collier, etc.. agree. Mr. Fleay (II, 332) has a very ingenious 
theory, not proved by his evidence, that the pla\' is Heywood's. 
■* Dyce"s IVebsler. 1857, vol. I, p. xv. 

37 



of Webster's character and style, derived merely from the ll'/iite 
Devil and 3lalji. But nothing- is truer than that the Elizabethan 
dramatists were Protean, enormously susceptible, and that at different 
periods they followed different tendencies, different fashions. That is 
what Webster did in Malji and the U^hite Devil, — wrote, as we shall 
see, in the stj-le of a school, — and his whole character is no more to 
be found in these two sombre tragedies than Shakspere's in Titus 
Andronicus and Richard III, or \n Wxe Tempest and Winter's Tale. 
Now in the Cure for a Cuckold he borrowed his plot almost bodily, as 
we shall yet see, from Massinger's Parliament of Love. The pre- 
sumption, thereby arising, that he should borrow, besides, something 
of the style and manner, a careful examination confirms ; and not only 
this play, but the DeviVs Laiv-Case and Appius and Virginia as well, 
show traces of the master influence of the day in which they took 
form — the influence of Massinger and Fletcher. Like vShakspere, 
like Chapman, Webster followed in their day of honor the lead of 
more forward and fashionable, though not more knowing, masters. ^ 
Yet we need not seem to beg the question — we need not, in order 
to prove the Cure for a Cuckold Wehstev's, seem to some to rob him 
of his integrity and make him out a different man. His hand and 
touch are here, even those of the Jl/al/i Webster. Let me bring for- 
ward only a few parallels of phrasing to prove this : 

1. Four times — in the ll7iite Devil, the DeviPs Laiv-Case, and 
twice in the Cure for a Cuckold — Webster makes a woman cry out 
at the news of her lover's death (brought, moreover, in three cases 
b}^ the would-be slayer himself). 

Oh , I am lost forever ! - 

2. On this same occasion, in both the Devil's La7V-Case and the 
Cure for a Cuckold, she cries to the would-be slayer, 

O, you have struck liim dead through my heart ! ^ 

3. In both the Cure for a Cuckold am\ the DeviTs Lazv-Case, the two 
young men who are about to fight a duel, speak of wearing a "privy 

• Shak. : see Thorndike's Iiiflue>icc of Beaunwut and Fletcher. Web.: see the 
chapters on C. C. and D. L. C. Chap. : see App. II. 

"^ C. C. IV, 2, p. 69, Clare : III, 3. p. 54, Annabel ; jr. D.. V, 1, p. 112, Vittoria Uiere, 
however, Brachiano is only dying) : D. L. C, II, 3, p. 46, L,eonora. 

' C. C, IV, 2, p. 69. Clare to I^essingham : D. L. C, III, 3, p. 68, " You have given 
him the wound you speak of quite through your mother's, heart." — In /?./.. C 
indeed, this speech is uttered not at the same time as "O I am lost," etc.. but at 
the second announcement of Contarino's death, from the mouth of her son, his 
would-be slayer.— The phrase itself is copied, like so many others in Web., from the 
Arcadia. See below, Chap. Ill, Sect. I. and Xoles and Queries. Oct. 15, 1904, p. 304. 

38 



coat,'" — what one in the one play calls his " heart,'''' and one in the 
other ' the "justice of his cause." In both cases it is an immaterial, 
and yet striking, coincidence of phrase and thought, such as would be 
brought forth only by the same mind under the same circumstances. 

4. Compare Clare in this play — 

I am every way lost, and no means to raise me 
But blest repentance I C. C. IV, 2, p. 72. 

— and Cornelia to Flamineo, in the White Devil — 

To tell how thou shouldst spend the time to come 

W. D., IV, 5, p. 209. 

— where the same phrase takes exactly the same position and accent 
in the metre, a slight matter no imitator would copy. 

5. The peculiar curse in the Cure for a Cuckold, 

And may my friend's blood, whom you loved so dearly, 

Forever lie imposthumed in your breast, 

And i' th' end choke you ! C. C. IV, 2, p. 72. 

and in the White Devil, 

Die with those pills in yofer most cursed maw^, 

Should taring you health ! or while you sit o' th" bench, 

I.,et your own spittle choke you 1 IV. D., Ill, 2, p. 65. 

6. In A Cure for a Cuckold : 
In Malfi 



You have ta'en a mass of lead from off my heart 
Forever would have sunk it in despair. IV, 2, p. 70. 



And thou hast ta'en that massy sheet of lead 
That hid thy husband's bones, and folded it 
About my heart. Ill, 2, pp. 209-10. 

7. In ^ Cure for a Cuckold: 

You are to sleep with a sweet bed-fellow 

Would knit the brow at that. IV. 2, p. 74. 

In the White Devil: 

why, the saints in heaven 
Will knit their brows at that. II, p. 38. 

In both cases the expression is used alike figuratively ; and in the 
same place in the metre and the sentence. 

8. \-a. A Cure for a Cuckold there is a couplet which recalls one 
that appears in both Malfi and the White Devil (see note at the end 

of Chapter II) : 

.\nd it were sin 
Not in our agre to show what we have bin. I, 1 , p. 16. 



' D.L. C, II, 1, pp.39, 40; C. C. Ill, 1. pp. 47. 

39 



There are yet other parallel passages, but let them pass. Of these 
quoted, nos. 1,2, and 3 coincide in wording, dramatic situation, and 
character ; others, as nos. 4 and 8, merely in the expression ; but most 
of them, being colorless and insignificant in themselves, and resem- 
bling each other far more in form than in substance, are, like the 
drawing of ears or little toes in a painter or sculptor, no more the 
points another would think of copying than he himself of changing. 

Another test we might apply to the Cure for a Cuckold is the use of 
the exclamation ha!, especially as comprehending a whole speech. 
This is of extraordinary frequency in Webster. ' It appears in the 
White Devil 13 times, 6 of them being whole speeches ; in Malfi 10 
times, 2 of them whole speeches ; in the Law-Case 9 times, 4 of them 
whole speeches ; \\\ Appius and Virgiiiia twice; in the main plot of 
the Cure for a Cuckold! Wm^^, 1 of them whole speeches. In view 
of the slight extent of Webster's part of the Cure for a Cuckold as 
compared with that of the other plays, and.of the frigidity and academic 
character of the Roman play, Appius and Virginia, the statistics for 
the different plays keep remarkabl}- even, and the Cure for a Cuckold 
seems only to take its place with the others. 

There are still other points of similarity, such as cheap, deceptive 
tricks with words. 

Less. Then truth is, he "s dangerously wounded. 

Wood. But he 's not dead, I hope? 

Less. No, Sir, not dead : 

Yet sure your daughter may take liberty 

To choose another. 



I told you he was wounded, and 'tis true ; 

He is wounded in his reputation. C. C, V, 1, pp. 86-7. 

Compare with this Appius and Virginia, I, 1, p. 132, where Appius 
pretends to go into banishment, but winds up in this fashion : 

Banish 'd from all my kindred and my friends ; 
Yea, banish 'd from niyself ; for I accept 
This honorable calling. 

This is a favorite artifice of Webster's. In the White Devil, V, 2, 
p. 131, Flamineo .speaks of his "two case of jewels," which in a 
moment turn out to be pistols, and Lodovico answers Giovanni's 
iquestion on whose authority he had committed the mas.sacre, thus : 

Lad. By thine. 

Gio. Mine ! 

Lod. Yes; thy uncle, whicli is a part of thee, enjoined us to 't. 

, II'. D., V, 2, p. 142. 

' These are the references : PV. /?., pp. 33, 35, .57, 61,64, 73, 81, 93, 108, 128, 141, 
142; Malfi, 177, 190. 190, 211, 232, 241, 249, 267, 273, 276; D. L. C. 25, 59, 62, 62, 65, 
68, 69, 70, 116 : C. C, 30,40, 46. 89, 90, 91, 96 ; ^. (5- V., 152, 214. 

40 



In Appius atid Virginia Virginius surrenders his daughter "into 
the court — of all the gods " '; and in the Devil's Laiv-Case and the 
Cure for a Cuckold this bent of his goes to such lengths as to lose 
utterly the spectator's confidence and sympathy. See, for instance, 
Jolenta's letter to Contarino, and Clare's letter (another point of 
similarity!) to Lessingham.- 

Another proof is the number of striking parallels in plot between 
the Cure for a Cuckold and Webster's only other independent comed}', 
the Devil's Law-Case, at points where it does not follow the Parlia- 
ment of Love. ^ But enough has been brought forward already, I 
think, to prove Webster's authorship beyond a cavil. 

If, however, the Cure for a Cuckold he made to follow the Parliament 
of Love, licensed to play November, 1624, some one well-read in Fleay 
or the Dictionary of National Biography may cry, "But Webster 
died in 1625." Mr. Fleay says, " He was probabh' the John Webster, 
cloth-worker, who made his will the 5th of Aug. 1625, proved 7th 
Oct."*; and Mr. Sidney Lee assents.'^ But, I think, without reason. 
It was the indefatigable Dyce who first brought forward John Webster, 
clothworker, and his will of 1625; and Dyce consigns it, as the only 
shred of evidence there is on the death of any John Webster within a 
remarkable stretch of time, to a foot-note. To this he adds, for com- 
pleteness' sake, the will of a John Webster, tallow-chandler." 

The abstract of the will furnished Mr. Dyce by the Prerogative 
Office is as follows : 

John Webster, clothworker, of l,ondon, made his will on the 5th of August, 1625, 
He bequeathes to his sister, Jane Cheney, dwelling within seven miles of Norwich 
10 1., with remainder, if she died, to her children, and if they died, to his sister 
Elizabeth Pyssing : to whom he also left 10 1., with remainder to her children. To 
his father-in-law, William Hattfield, of Whittington, in Derbyshire, 15 1., and to his 
four children 4 1. each. To his cousin Peter Webster, of Whittington, in Derbyshire, 
he gives 10 1., and if he died before it was paid, it was to be given to his brother, who 
was a Protestant, " for I hear that one brother of my cousin Peter is a papist." To 
William Bradbury, of I^ondon, shoemaker, 5 1. To Richard Matthew, his (the tes- 
tator's) son-in-law, 16 1. He mentions his father-in-law, Mr. Thomas F'arnian. He 
gives his counsin Edward Curtice, 1 1. 2 s., etc. He leaves the residue of his prop- 
erty to his brothers and sisters in law, by his wife ; specially pro\'iding that Eliza- 



» A. & v.. IV, 1, p. 201. 

== D. L. C, V, 2, p. 107 ; cf. Ill, 3, pp. 62, 63 : C. C, I, p. 13 : cf. II, 4, p. 38, as to his 
being mistaken, and the explanations, pp. 38, 54, 69, 74. — And for other deceptive 
verbal tricks, p. 47 and pp. 48, 49. 

' Below, Chap. IV, Sect. I. note at end. 

* Biog. Chi-., II, 268. 

° "He seems to have died," etc., Diet. Nal. Bios., art. Webster. I^ikewise Mr. 
Gosse, Jacobean Poets, I,ondon, 1894, p. 166. 

® Dyce's Web., ed. 1857, p. x. 

41 



beth Walker should be one. He constitutes Mr. Robert .\ungel. and his cousin, 
Mr. Francis Ash, citizens, his executors; and his cousins Courtis and Ta.vler, 
overseers of his will, — which was proved by his executors on the 7th of October, 
1625. 

This document is neither written nor sijjfned by the testator ; he 
and three of the witnesses (his cousin Edward Curtis, the fourth, being 
the only exception) are fain to make their marks. ^ Now it is incon- 
ceivable that John Webster, playwright, should not have signed his 
name unless too weak to hold the pen (which the date of the proving 
makes unlikely) ; and it is highl}' improbable that with friends like 
Dekker, Munday, Heywood, Ford, and Rowley - still living, he should 
have been abandoned in his last hours to the societj' of illiterates, or, 
with so large an estate on his hands, should have bequeathed it only 
to distant Protestant relatives and a shoemaker. Our Webster, more- 
over, was not a clothworker. "Merchant-Taylor" he designates 
himself on the title-page of the JMonnments of Honor, a pageant of 
' ' the Right Worthy and Worshipful Fraternity, the Eminent Merchant 
Tajdors, " — a thing (as Dyce and Fleay surely knew) very differ- 
ent.-^ And, even as merchant-tailor, he speaks of himself at this same 
time, in the dedication to Gore, only as of one "'born free of your 
company."* He is, therefore, not any of the three John W^ebsters 
made free ■' of the Company in 1571, 1576, and 1617 '^; still less that one 



^ I give this on the authority of Mr. Crofts. See below, p. 43, note. 

"That these last were also his friends, appears from the partnership with Ford, 
and his verses addressed to Munday and Heywood. 

^ It is unlikely that in the will of J. W., clothworker, there should have been 
any such mistake. However loosely and vaguely such three designations as cloth- 
worker, merchant-tailor, and draper may be used today, it was otherwise then, 
■when one necessarily understood by each a member of one of the Twelve Great 
Companies of London (see list in Ashley's Etiglish Econ. Hist., 1893, vol. II. p. 133). 

* .See Works, III, p. 232 : pub. in 1624. 

° This distinction is important. See Toulmin Smith, English Gilds (I,ondon, 1870) , 
p. cxxxii : " the whole household of a Gild-brother belonged to the Gild," etc. 

* Works, I, introd., p. vi. — Pcssibly, on the other hand, he may have been a son 
of one of the earlier ones. The due-bill dated Jvily 25th, 1591, wherein John AUein 
and Edward Alleyn acknowledge their indebtedness to "John Webster, citysen and 
merchant Tayler of l,ondon " in the sum of 15 shillings, is probably the nearest 
we come by documentary evidence to John Webster the poet. This may be the 
poet's father, who may have had dealings with actors and so come to get his son 
into their .society. This would harmonize with our poet's being horn free of the 
company. The due-bill is printed in \.\\^ Alley n Papers, ed. by Collier (who suggests 
that this Webster may be the father of the poet), L,ondon, 1843. p. 14; and is 
accounted b\- W'arner in his Catalogite of Diihvich College A/ss. as genuine. — If this 
be so, the poet can not be the ' nephew John Webster, as near tow-horn as might be ' 
John Webster, the tallow-chandler, in his will of Feb. 16th, 1628, wi.shes to be buried ; 
there could not have been two brothers called John. 

42 



assessed 10 shillings on March 15th, 1603 '; nor, indeed, is he to be 
reckoned a craftsman at all. The designation on the title-page is 
perfvinctory, in compliment to the company for which he wrote the 
pageant ; and Webster is no more of a merchant-tailor than any of 
the other worthies mentioned in this pageant as ' ' free of the com- 
pany," than that bold soldier of fortune, Sir John Hawkwood, Queen 
Anne, or the " bad man but good king, Richard the Third. "^ 

We may conclude, therefore, without a shadow of doubt, that Webster 
is not John Webster, clothworker ; and since there are no more wills 
of John Websters at Somerset House, ^ from 1621-35, there is, at any 
rate, no longer a will and probate in the way* of Webster's writing 
the Cure for a Cuckold ait&r Nov. 3rd, 1624. 

XI. THE PERIODS OF WEBSTER'S WORK. 

Now, at last, we are in a position to tabulate on a secure basis the 
development of Webster's art. Three periods, of course (according 
to the hacknej'ed and inevitable scheme), are to be discerned : Growth, 
Maturity, and Decaj', the point of Maturity being marked by the White 
Devil and Jfalji. Another principle, however, is to be preferred, — 
that of the prevalent influences. According to this latter, his work 
falls into these periods : 

1 . Period of Apprenticeship and Partnership : mainly under the 
influence of Dekker. 

sesers ffalle 1602 

too shapes 1602 

Sir Thomas Wyatt {hady Jane:) 1602 

cryssmas comes bute once ayeare 1602 



^ /. e.. toward a pageant for King James. Clode {Memorials of the Merchant 
Taylors' Company, lyOn., 1875, p. 596), who takes it as a matter of course that this is 
the poet himself, admits (p. 601, note) that the records do not show that he ever 
took up the freedom acquired by birth. Clode seems not to know of the Alleyn 
Papers John Webster, who is probably the man assessed. 

"Moil. Hon., pp. 238-9. Mischief in this business of the tailor was made by Dyce 
(blindly followed by Haz.), in quoting wrongly the title-page of the Mon. Hon. 
He says, ed. 1830, vol. I, p. 11, that there W. describes himself as "John Webster 
Taylor," although in vol. IV, App., he gives the title-page correctly — " Merchant- 
Taylor," — from the "copy, perhaps unique, belonging to the Duke of Devonshire." 
His calling himself " Taylor " is, of course, a different matter. 

^ What facts I have here given concerning the Clothworker 's parchment I owe to 
the services of Mr. T. Robertson W. Crofts, Highgate. He was not allowed by the 
authorities to copy it or to have it copied ; and after he had furnished me with the 
above facts, I decided photographing was not necessary. 

* Excepting always the tallow-chandler's. 

43 



Imluctioii to the MaUonU'ut " bef. July, 1604 

U'cstuani Ho c. September 1604-1605 

Xofifncard Ho Spring 1605-1606 

2. Period of the Revenge Plays : mainly under the influence of 
Marston . 

T/u- ir/iitf Dci-il Winter 1611-1612 

77/<- Diu'/icss of Jfolji 1617, after April 

3. Fletcherian anil Acatlemio Perimi : under the influence not only 
of Fletcher and Massinger, but of the old-fashioned dramatists, 
Marlowe. Heywixid, and Shakspere. 

Tfw Guise prob. after JA^/A and before D. /.. C.- 

Thf nevirs Laxc-Case end 1620— July 1622 

Ap/>ins and I'iroitiia 1623-1639 

A Cutr for a Ciu-kold after Nov., 1624 

' This, as I pro\-e in Chap. H, is all Web. wrote. 
* See below, Chap. IV, Sect. IV, end. 



44 



CHAPTER II. 
The Period of Apprenticeship axd Partnership. 

I. SIR THOMAS WYATT. 
The Source; Ci,assific\tion of the Play. 
The earliest work of Webster's handed down to us is, as we have 
seen, the Fatuous History of Sir T/ioinas U'yatf, hy both him and 
Dekker. This is an English chronicle-play, or 'history,' like the 
English " histories ' of Shakspere and of ^Marlowe. Like nianj* of 
these, it draws its plot from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicle, — in this 
special case from Vol. Ill, p. 1067, to Vol. IV, p. 29, in the edition of 
1808. For not onh- does Holinshed contain all tlie minor historical 
incidents depicted by Dekker and Webster, such as Arundel's lament- 
ing his inability to accompany Northumberland on his march, the 
escape and capture of the Treasurer, Northumberland's recreant pro- 
claiming of ]Mary at Cambridge and his arrest by Arundel, the betrayal 
and taking of Suffolk, and the later defection of Brett and the Lon- 
doners from the royal cause, — but also seems in one case, at least, to 
furnish the very wonling of a speech. Holinshed reports the Queen's 
Master of tlie Horse as saying;, 

" Wiat, before thou shalt have thy traitorous demand sranted. thou shalt die, and 
twentie thowsaiid with thee." Vol. IV, p. 15. 

This was when Wyatt was at Dartford. The inciilent itself Dekker 
and Webster omit, yet make Pembroke from the walls of London say 
something quite similar : 

Know that these gates are barred against thy entrance ; 

And it shall cost the lives of twenty thousand 

True subjects to the queen before a traitor enters. Wyatt. p. 47. 

And other deviations from the origfinal so slight as this there are of 
course. Lady Jane, to add another instance, is made in the play to 
die before her husband, instead of after him as in Holinshed ; and 
Brett is made to command also under Northumberland. But such dis- 
crepancies are probably all intentional — mere dramatic license, — and 
do not indicate a different source. ' 

' Jr.Mitt, pp. 21-2. Dekker \-iolates history to save introducing another character. 
He cannot lie foUowins: another source than llolinshed : for. as a matter of fact, 
Brett, had he commanded under the rcWl Northumberland, would, in that age, 
hardly be available afterward. 

45 



As a drama, we have said, Wyatt belongs to the English chronicle- 
plays, or ' histories.' Of these, previous to Dekker and Webster, 
there are, one might say, two classes — the popular and the Marlow- 
esque. Both have a fully developed dramaturgical machiner}^ much in 
common : but the Marlowesque are stately, bloody tragedies, with a 
towering central character round which the events revolve ; while 
the popular are loose and rambling in construction, and blend tragedy 
■with low-life and comedy. The one class is represented b}' such plays 
as Edward II, Richard II, and Richard III; the other, by the 
First Pati of the Contention, the True Tragedie of Richard Duke 
of Yorke, the True Tragedie of Richard III, the Troublesome Raigne 
of King John, Locrine, and Shakspere's Henry VI and King John.^ 
It is to this latter class that Wyatt belongs. It shows no appreciable 
influence from Marlowe, and contains scenes so popular in character 
as those between Brett and his soldiers (pp. 20-23, 43-46) and the 
clown-scene (pp. 29, 30) . Much of the machinery and devices common 
to both classes are to be found in it. Such are the frank Machiavellian 
villain^ ; ominous dreams ^; declamatory ex post facto political prophe- 

' Edwaid II, reg. 1593, pub. 1594; Rich. Ill, first 4to known, 1597, but certainly 
composed earlier ; The First Part of the Contention betwixt the Two Famous Houses 
of Yorke and Lancaster, 1594; The True Tragedie of Richard, Djtke of Yorke, and 
the Death of Good King Henrie the Sixt, etc., 1595; The True Tragedie of Richard 
the Third, etc., 1594 ; The Troublesome Raigne of lohn. King of England, etc., 1591 ; 
Locrine, reff. 1594, pub. 1595; Shak.'s Heyi. VI, Pts. II and III, followed closely upon 
their originals, the Contention and the Ti-ue Tragedie, but were not published till 
the folio of 1623. Pt. I was acted March 3rd, 1592 (see .Sidney Lee's I^ife of Shak., 
p. 56). King John , first printed in the F., is mentioned by Meres, 1598; it is prob- 
ably .several years older. — All of these have low life and comic scenes. Locrine, 
like U^yatt, has a clown. 

" See the accountof the Machiavellian villain in Meyer's Machiavelli and the Eng. 
Drama. The Machiavellian villain is a frank lover of evil and enemy of God, whose 
boast is a program of fraud and violence. — See Wyatt, p. 6 : 

What though the king hath left behind 

Two sisters lawful and immediate heirs, 

lies it not 

In our powers to contradict it ? 



Tut, we stand high in man's opinion, etc. 

fiuch are Shak.'s Rich. Ill in his avowals ; the Rich. Ill of Trtie Tiagedie, and of 
Trag. of Rich. Ill, as well as Mortimer in Edward II, King John to some degree, 
etc. — Throughout this book I use the term Machiavellian more loosely than Meyer, 
— for the frank Eliz. villain done after the style of Barabas, Aaron, or IvOrenzo 
iSp. Tr.) , whether he actually echo any of the maxims of Machiavelli (or Gentillet) 
or not. 

^ IVyait, p. 37 — Cf. Clarence's dream in RicJi. Ill, I, 4; V, 3 ; Duke Humphrey's 
and his wife's dreams in Contention, pp. 421-2; Hen. VI, Pt. II, I, 2; Sir Thomas 
More, Dyce ed., p. 75. 

46 



cies which reach beyond the scope of the play itself ' ; forebodings 
on entering the Tower or some other ill-famed keep ^; battle-scenes, 
with wrangling and baiting ; the introduction of foolish, trivial inci- 
dents, such as that of the Treasurer's escape, because of their historic 
character ^; crude devices, like the starting of a conversation as a char- 
acter enters by the question "Whither awa}' so fast?"*; a stately, 
even stilted, style ; and a relentless bent for punning in the midst of 
heroic declamation.'^ 

Some of the artifices just recounted are not exclusively peculiar to 
the histories, but they are peculiar to the dramaturgy of the time 
when the histories we have been considering arose, 1593-6. Since 
that and before 1598, appeared plays so free from the old traditional 
machiner}^ as (in some measure) Richard II, Edward III, and above 
all Henry IV.'''' Wyatt, then, in 1602, is old-fashioned. Indeed, to the 
ordinary reader it seems very old-fashioned, more archaic than the 
histories of 1593-6, for it drops often into rime, which they one and all 
disdain ; and it often manifests in the tragic portions a puerile inepti- 
tude of language and situation, " which, of course, is vastly below the 

' IVyatt, p. 59. True Tragedie, pp. 84-5, 98, prophecj' of the boy Richmond's becom- 
ing- king, etc. ; Henry's prophecies, 3 Hen. VI, IV, 6, 68; V, 6, 36; Contention, p. 
458, Elinor Cobham's to Humphrey ; 1 Hen. VI, II, 4, 124, prophecy of the Wars of 
the Roses: Rich. II, V, 1, 54, etc. ; Rich. Ill, passim : Troublesome Raigne, p. 291, 
prophecy of the doing away with popery in Eng. : see the ' history ' J%il. Ccfs., Ill, 1, 
111 f, 253 f , Cassius's, Brutus's, and Antony's. 

= Tower: IVyatt, p. 10 ; Rich. Ill, III, 4, 87 f ; III, 1, 142 f ; IV, 1, 98 : Sir Thomas 
More, p. 90. Pomfret: Rich. III. Ill, 3, 9. 

^ Anecdotal incidents, coninion in the popiUar plays. See the incident of Duke 
Humphrey unmasking the fraud of the would-be blind man in the Contention and 
2 Hen. VI, II, 1. 

* Wyatt. p. 6. — Common in Marlowe ; / Hen. VI, III, 2, 104 ; 2 Hen. VI. Ill, 2, 367 ; 
Rich. HI, II, 3, 1 ; IV, 1, 7 ; Contention, p. 479. 

' H^yatt, pp. 6, 56, 60, 62 ; Contention, p. 419 ; Rich. II, II, 1, 72 f, 82 f, where Gaunt 
puns on his own name even when dying. King John : Pandulph, III, 1, 263-298 ; 
Arthur, IV, 1, 60-70 ; Sir Thofnas More, p. 90. 

* Rich. II. pub. 1597; Hen. IV. Ft. I, reg. Feb., 1598, and Ft. II, 1600; Edward 
III, pub. 1596. Hen. IV, though so free and unconventionalized, was, with its 
loose structure, its combination of kingly tragedy and low-life comedy, certainly 
developed out of the popular type. Rich. II, on the other hand, an earlier work, is 
modelled on Marlowesque lines (though far less closely than Rich. Ill) , after Edward 
II. — Since writing this, I have come upon Mr. Felix Schelling's English Chronicle 
Play (New York, 1902), in which some of the distinctions and judgments here 
arrived at are anticipated. 

' Such speeches as this : 

O God, O God, that ever I was born ! 

This deed hath made me slave to abject scorn. F. 29. 

and such scenes as that of the Treasurer's escape, pp. 14, 15. Cf. the betrayal of 
Suffolk, with the astounding Judas kiss, p. 28, etc. 

47 



level of the Marlowesque class and even generally of the popular. 
Yet, though crude, IVyatt is really not so archaic. Fondness for 
rime is an idiosyncrasy of Dekker's, we shall see, which follows 
him throughout his career ; and even Richard II and Edward III, in 
1596-7, have plenty of it. In Wyatt, moreover, much of the old 
Senecan blood-and-thunder machinery, and the motive of revenge, so 
prominent in most of the histories of both classes of 1593-6, have died 
out. The Machiavellian villain is atrophied awa}- almost to nothing.^ 
There are no ghosts or conjuring or other infernal machiner)' -'; no 
mastiff barons and wolfish ladies, nor baiting of captives; no chorus 
of men or women cursing and lamenting ; no poisoning, stabbing, 
smothering, spilling of blood, nor Machiavellian boasting of such.* 
On the other hand, there is in IVyatt, as we shall see, a vein of com- 
passion, soft sentiment, and humanity, foreign to the spirit of those 
plays of 1593-6, — a development in the hands of Dekker and Web- 
ster. Crude, then, on the whole, Hyatt is, but only in consideration 
of its late date and the character of Shakspere's preceding work, spe- 
cially primitive and old-fashioned. 

One of these earlier chronicle-plays of the popular type may have 
served as model for IVyatt, — the First Part of the Contention betivixt 
the Tivo Famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, zvith the notable 
Rebellion of Jack Cade, London, 1594, or possibly Shakspere's revi- 
sion of this, first published, as the Second Part of Henry VI, in 1623, 
but on the stage long before Wyatt. In either version there are 
similar rebel-scenes. ' Jack Cade, like Captain Brett, is a comic figure 
— the soul of complacence, an ignorant, unscrupulous demagogue,, 
and a patriotic blatherskite who hates the French as indiscriminately 



* He appears only at PI). 5, 6, 7, and even there he is not ready to commit any 
crime other than wresting away the kingdom ; later, he gets tame as a lamb. 

"^ No ghosts as in Rich. Ill, Trag. of Rich. Ill, Locrine, Contention ; no conjur- 
ing as in Co«/^«//o«, 2 Hen. VI, 1,4. 

' As Queen Margaret in Contention (esp. 477), True Trasedie, Rich. Ill, and 
Hen. VI ; Isabella in lid. H ; Barons in Ed. II and the York-l,ancaster tragedies, 
esp. Clifford in killing young Rutland, True Tragedie, p. 19 f, the Queen and Harons 
as they bait York and stab him, ib., pp. 24-28, King Edward stabbing I'rince 
Kdward, at the end, before his mother's eyes, p. 95. Fierce quarrels in Ed. II, 
Contention, 440-1, 475, True Trag., pp. 7, 8, 24-5, etc. ; boasting, showing of etiemies' 
blood, and throwing down a head as a trophy, ib., p. 4 ; the putting out of .Arthur's 
eyes in Troublesome Raigne; smothering of Duke Humphrey in Contention , of 
Edward in Ed. II, of the Innocents in the Tower in Trag. of Rich. Ill, etc. ; all on 
the stage. Winchester, of course, and Mary, too, in IVyatt are far from agreeable, 
but they are not of the same stripe as the above. Chorus of cuTsing and lamenting: 
in Rich. Ill, — Margaret, I, 3, and the women IV, 4; King John, II, 1; III, 1 ; 
Troublesome Raigne, pp. 248, 249, 251-2, 257-8, 261, etc. ; True Trag., p. 50. 

* ^F^d//, pp. 43-48 ; Contention, pp. 487-506 ; 2 Hen. JV. 

48 



as Brett the Spanish.' His speeches, like Brett's, suffer a running 
comment from his men, which sets off the comic effect. And the 
rag-tag and bob-tail which follows either, shows the same responsive- 
ness to oratory, the same inconstancy to the cause they have espoused. ^ 

Webster's Share. 

The consideration of these relations of IVyatt to the chronicle-plays 
leads to the question, how much of the play is Webster's ? '' We should 
expect it to be mostly Dekker's ; for, according to Henslowe's entries, 
Part First of Lady Jane was by " deckers chettell smythe webester & 
hewode," and Part Second b}' Dekker alone.* Further to answer the 
question there is no way but by pointing out what must be Dekker's. 
For Webster has no independent work with which to compare it ; — 
what is later shows nothing in common with Wyatt, and none of it is 
contemporary. With Dekker the case is otherwise. Of his unaided 
work, there are preserved three'' plays written before Wyatt and two 
shorth' after, " some of these being his masterpieces, and all thoroughly 
characteristic of the man . 

What features of Wyatt, then, are due to Dekker? It is to be 
remembered, of course, that Dekker is not at home here ; his element 
is not tragic horror nor heroic verse, but the doings and sayings of a 
Simon Eyre or an Orlando. Yet even in this play there are characters 
on which he has left his unmistakable impress. Wyatt, for instance, 
Brett, and the Clown — the only real characters — are certainly his. 
Wyatt speaks with an abrupt force, a dogged reiteration, and a 
breeziness very like Dekker : 

I '11 damn my soul for no man, no, for no man. 
Who at doomsday must answer for my sin? 
Not you, nor you, my lords. 

* Wyatt, pp. 44-5 ; Contention, 488-90, and for " French," 493-4, etc. 

* Cf. the defection of the l,ondoners from the cause of the Queen under the influ- 
ence of Brett's oratory, and their suliseQuent sudden desertion of Wyatt, pp. 43-48, 
with Contention, p. 505, where after Clifford's speech Cade's followers call out " A 
Clifford, A Clifford," and de.sert Cade, and after Cade's, "A Cade, A Cade," and 
desert Clifford. 

' "I think Webster wrote Sc. 1-9, Dekker Sc. 11-17, the change of Dram. Pers. 
being very marked in Sc. 10 " (Fleay, II, p. 269) ; that is, I suppose, up to p. 36 in fhe 
Hazlitt ed. is Webster's. No reasons are vovichsafed. 

* vSee Henslowe, p. 183, where " fulle payment" is made to the partners in Zarfy 
Jane: and p. 184, where, six days later, Dekker is paid 3 pounds in "earneste of the 
2 pt. of I^ady Jane." Ward notes this. — This holds, however, only if Pt. II is really 
contained in IVyatt. .See above, p. 

' Shoemaker'' s Holiday, reg. July 15, 1599; Old Forlunatus, reg. Nov. 9, 1599; 
Satironiastix, reg. Nov. 11, 1601. 

* Honest IVliore, Pt. I, reg. Nov. 9, 1604; Whore of Babylon, April 20, 1607. 

49 



Who nam 'd Queen Jane, in noble Henry's days? ■ > i, 

Which of you all durst once displace his issue ? 

My lords, my lords, you whet your knives so sharp 

To can'e your meat. 

That they will cut your finders. 

The strength is weakness that you build upon. 

The Kinsf is sick, — God mend him, ay, God mend him ! — 

But were his soul from his pale body free, 

Adieu, my lords, the court no court for me. IVyad, p. 6. 

IVyat. He shall pass and repass, juggle the best he can. 

Lead him into the city. Norry, set forth. 

Set forth thy brazen throat, and call all Rochester 

About thee ; do thy office ; fill 

Their light heads with proclamations, do ; 

Catch fools with lime-twigs dipt with pardons. 

But Sir George, and good Sir Harry Isley, 

If this gallant open his mouth too wide. 

Powder the varlet, pistol him, fire the roof 

That 's o'er his mouth. 

He craves the law of arms, and he shall ha 't : 

Teach him our law, to cut 's throat if he prate. 

If louder reach thy proclamation. 

The lyord have mercy upon thee ! 

Norry. Sir Thomas, I must do my office. 

Harp. Come, we '11 do ours too. 

H'^y. Ay, Ay, do, blow thyself hence. 

Whoreson, proud herald, becau.se he can 

Give arms, he thinks to cut us off by th' elbows. 

Masters, and fellow soldiers, say will you leave 

OldTomWyat? /*.. pp. 40, 41. 

That is certainly not Webster '.s hand, and certainly is Dekker's. 
Parallels in Dekker are abundant ; a short search yields these : 

Terrill. If she should prooue mankinde, twere rare, fye, fye. 

See ho-w I loose myself amongst ray thoughts. 

Thinking to find my selfe ; my oath, my oath. 

Sir Quin. I sweare another, let me see, by what. 

By my long stocking, and my narrow skirtes, 

Not made to sit vipon, she shall to Court. 

I have a tricke, a charme, that shall lay downe 

The spirit of lust, and keep thee undeflowred ; 

Thy husband's honor sau'd, and the hot King, 

Shall haue enough, too. Come, a tricke, a charme. Sat., p. 225. 

. • Candida. My govni, George, go, my gown. — A happy land. 

Where grave men meet each cause to understand. 

Come, where 's the gown ? 

Good wife, kind wife, it is a needful trouble, but for my gown ! 

H. IV., p. 139. 



Cf. also IVyatt, p. 50, a similar speech of Wyatt's. 

50 



Georse. Do 't: away, do 't 75., p. 135. 

Lodovico. Do, do, bravely. lb., p. 222. 

Tucca. CrispiniLS shaldoo 't, thou shall doo 't, heyre apparent of 
Helicon, thou shalt doo 't. Sal., p. 201. 

Here there i.s the same liveliness, boisterousness, dowiirightness of 
manner, and — what is equally significant — the same style and 
rhythm. 

And Brett is sprung from the author of " Tom Wyatt," and, as I 
think, of Simon Eyre : 

Brett. Bight, for he [the .Spaniard] carrie.s not the Englishman's yard about him. 
If you deal with him, look for hard measure ; if you give an inch, he '11 take an ell ; 
if he give an ell, he'll take an inch; therefore, my fine, spruce, dapper, finical 
fellows, if >ou are now, as you have always been counted, politic I^ondoners to fly 
to the stronger side, leave Arundel, leave Norfolk, and love Brett. . . . Wear your 
own neat's-leather shoes ; scorn Spanish leather; cry, a fig for the Spaniard. Said 
I well, bullies? M^ja//, pp. 45-6. 

In "leave Norfolk and love Brett " Brett uses the same turn as Wyatt 
in ' ' will you leave old Tom Wyatt ? ' ' And he has much the same 
terms of endearment for his soldiers as Simon Eyre for his workmen : 
"Stay, my fine knaves, you arms of my trade, you pillars of my pro- 
fession " ' ; " Now, my true Trojans, my fine Firk, my dapper Hodge, 
my honest Hans," etc.'^ 

The Clown, too, is Dekker's, for the jokes of his comment on Brett's 
harangue are in Dekker's broad, hearty st3'le, quite foreign to Web.ster, 
and, indeed, are not easily separable from the harangue itself. His 
speech after the death of Ned Homes contains a sure token of Dekker 
as opposed to Webster — a phrase in Dutch. ^ 

These disposed of, it is hardly possible to speak further of characters ; 
yet, aside from these, there are several who utter phrases and ideas of 
enough individuality to be Dekker's. Such are : 

Jane. A hand as pure fronr treason, as innocent 

As the white livery 

Worn by th' angels in their Maker's sight ! * 

North. O, at the general sessions, when all souls 

Stand at the bar of justice, and hold up 

Their new-immortalized hands, O then 

I<et the remembrance of their tragic ends 

Be raz'd out of the bead-roll of my sins ! Wyatt, p. 26. 

' Shoemaker, p. 30. 

* Shoemaker, p. 45, and there are many other similar ones. 

^ IVjatt, p. 30. Cf. the Dutch in the Shoemaker, passim. There is none in Web. 

* IVyati, p. 51. A striking parallel of thought in a different situation is Candido's 
remark about the cloth before him : "O that each .soul were but as spotless as this 
innocent white." H. IV., p. 161. 

51 



For in these there is a sweet personal tone — one that Webster 
never shows, and had he ever had, he couhl hardly have so outlived, 
— that is altogether like that of the creator of Jane, ' Bellafront, and 
Orlando Friscobaldo, — the tender, homely, religious man who just 

about this time wrote. 

The best of men 
That e'er wore earth about him, was a sufferer, 
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit. 
The first true jrentleman that ever breathed. H. II'., p. 190. 

And there is a vein of sentiment more simple and commonplace 
than that, in the mouths of not only gentle Lady Jane and Guildford 
but of the Machiavellian Northumberland, of Arundel, of Norfolk, of 
stout Wyatt, and even of the Porter ; a sentiment little varied and of 
no character, a harping on tears, embracings, love, and compassion, 
quite unusual in either the popular or the Marlowcsque histories, and 
here pretty certainly to be attributed also to Dekker.- 

This last point, taken with the others, would goto show the presence 
of Dekker's hand everywhere in the play ; the metre shows this still 
more. It bears not the slightest resemblance to any of Webster's — is 
thoroughly Dekker's. First, in the abundance of rime. All of Shaks- 
pere's chronicle-pla3's, Marlowe's, and nearly all of those since Mar- 
lowe, show very little rime ; for the history, like tragedy, had adopted 
the unrimed five-accent verse. The FiVsl Paii of the Contention, 
which of all these shows greatest similarity to Wyatt, has only 6 coup- 
lets in the first 550 lines : Wyatt in the first 550 lines has 47, and the 
Shoemaker's Holiday ^ 76. Secondly, in the frequent occurrence of a 
full pause before either the first or the second rime of the couplet, or of 
a very short line riming with a long one, — mannerisms which give an 
emphasis to the rime altogether foreign to Webster's rimed work, as 

in 

Were this rightly scann'd. 
We scarce should find a king in any land. P. 9. 

Observe their part. 

Pouring down tears, sent from my swelling heart! P. 19. 

Of this there is abundance in Dekker's other work — in the Shoe- 
maker'' s Holiday, for instance, Fortunatus, and even so late as in 



* In Shoemaker. 

' Wyatt, pp. 13, 14, 14, 15, 19, 26, 54, 55, etc. ; and the pity and compassion for I^ady 
Jane and Guildford, pp. 60-62. It is hackneyed and commonplace, of the style in 
which pity and compassion when they do appear in the older histories are clothed, 
as once in the bloody True Trag. of Yorke, p. 27 ; and therefore to be attributed to 
Dekker also because of his familiarity with this older type. See below. 

= Date, 1599. 

52 



If This be not a Good Play. '^ Thirdly, in the frequent occurrence - 
frequent that is, compared to other wTiters of the day and to Webster, 
who has almost none of it, — of rime between two speeches. This 
appears also in the Shoetnaker and Fortunatus ."^ And last of all, in 
the general effect of the rh>i;hm, stronglj' accented and rapid, but 
jolting, little varied, and sometimes so rough and crude as to descend 
to the level of doggerel : 

I '11 to the dukes at Cambridge, and discharge them all. 

Prosper me, God, in these affairs ! 

I loved the father well, I loved the son. 

And for the daughter I through death will run. IVyatt, p. 12. 

Then you cried , God speed ; 

Now you come on me, ere you say, take heed. Wyatt, p. 25. 

And when thou spendest this ill-got gold, 

Remember how thy master's life was sold ; 

Thy lord that gave thee lordships, made thee great ; 

Yet thou betray'd'st him as he sat at meat. 

On to my grave : 'tis time that I were dead. 

When he that held my heart betrays my head. IVyatt, pp. 28-9. 

With this, and with Wj-att's speeches cited above, pp. 49, 50, compare 
the following from the Shoemaker : 

Ralph. I thank jou, master, and I thank you all. 

Now, gentle wife, my loving, lovely Jane, 

Rich men, at parting, give their wives rich gifts. 

Jewels atid rings, to grace their lily hands. 

Thou know'st our trade makes rings for women's heels : 

Here take this pair of shoes, cut out by Hodge, 

Stitched by my fellow Firk, seamed by myself, 

Made up and pinked with letters for thy name. 

Wear them, my dear Jane, for thy husband's sake, 

And every morning when thou pulls't them on. 

Remember me, and pray for my return. 

Make much of them ; for I have made them so. 

That I can know them from a thousand mo. Shoemaker, p. 15. 

Ham. All this, I hope, is but a woman's fray, 
That means : come to me, when she cries : away ! 
In earnest, mistress, I do not jest. 



* Of full pause shortly before one of the rimes: H'yait: p. 6 me, p. 8 dead, p. 9 
scann'd, p. 13 go, p. 14 stay, p. 15 prove, p. 16 part, p. 19 afraid, p. 21 sense, 
p. 21 woe, p. 23 need, p. 26 submit, p. 27 do, etc. Shoemaker, p. 10 stay, p. 13 
go, p. 15 so, p. 19 can, p. 26 farewell, right, no, stay, gentleman, p. 27 Ford, same, 
guest, life, p. 35 grieve, name, p. 36 right, now, brawl, jest, doubt, etc. If This be not 
a Good Play: p. 266 slave, p. 269 civill, throw, p. 270 beside, p. 272 goe, say, etc. Of 
one very short line to a couplet : Wyatt, p. 6 stay, p. 7 power, p. 11 be, dead, p. 14 on, 
p. 19 part, p. 22 farewell, p. 23 proceed, p. 24 part, p. 25 speed. 

' Wyatt: p. 21 one couplet, p. 39 one, p. 52 three, p. 55 two, p. 60 one ; Shoemaker, 
great number, as, p. 26, 27, 36, 37, etc. ; Fortunatus, p. 359 four, etc. 

53 



A true chaste love hath entered in ni\- breast. 

I love you dearly, as I love my life, 

I love you as a husband loves a wife ; 

That, and no other love, my love requires, 

Thy wealth, I know, is little ; my desires 

Thirst not for jrold. Sweet, beauteous Jane, what 's mine 

Shall, if thou make myself thine, all be thine. 

Say, judge, what is thy sentence, life or death? 

Mercy or cruelty lies in thy breath. Shoemaker, p. 52. 

Note in both the same persistent, emphatic accent, the endstopt 
lines and strong endings, ' and — what is most notable and most 
Dekker-like — the marked pause in the middle of the line, balancing 
two rather distinct, and sometimes parallelistic, - phrases or clauses. 

What real characters there are in Wyatt, then, are Dekker's ; many 
scattered ideas and phrases, the sentiment which pervades the play, 
the metre, and often the cast of the language, ^ seem decidedly of his 
making; and Dekker's, let me now add, is also the general conduct 
of the play. For he was already an old hand at the ' history.' Here 
is a list of his histories, now lost, as recovered from Henslowe's diary : 

1598, March 13-25, " the famos wares of henry the fyrste & the prynce of walles." 

P. 85. 
March 30, " goodwine and his iij .sonnes." P. 85. 
" perce of exstone." P. 85. 
September 29, '* syvell wares in fraunce." Three parts, pp. 96, 98, etc. 

1599, September 3, " Robart the second kinge of scottes tragedie." P. 111. 

These were probably all in the ' history ' style ; and one of them, 
the third part of "'syvell wares of fraunce,'' is given in Henslowe as 
by Dekker alone."* Very likely, then, it was Dekker that laid the 
plot of Wyatt. 

There is little left to Webster. One who holds to the opinion that 
Webster was a haunter of churchyards and always wrote as black as in 
Malji, might claim for him this meditation : 

Guild. The Tower will be a place of ample state : 
Some lodgings in it will, like dead men's sculls, 
Remember us of frailty. 
We are led with pomp to pri-son. 

* Mr. Swinburne, in his study of Dekker, Nineteenth Cent. 1887, speaks of his 
'•'abrupt rimes." 

' As in some of the extracts above, or in these from couplets in Wyatt : 

P. 26. my crime is great, and I must answer it. 

P. 27. Need bids me eat, need bids me hear thee too. 

P. 20. If the dukes be cross, we '11 cross their powers. 

P. 36. To save this country, and this realm defend, etc. • 
Cf. also //. IV., Pt. I, p. 112. We get by many if we lose by one, etc. ; p. 60, 
Hans's second speech. 

* As in the excerpts quoted from Brett's, Wyatt's, and the Clown's .speeches above, 

* Henslowe, p. 99. 

54 



Jane. O prophetic soul ! 

IvO, we ascend into our chairs of state, 
I,ike funeral coffins in some funeral pomp 
Descending to their graves ! P. 10. 

or this : 

Alas 1 how small an urn contains a king! Pp. 8, 9, etc. 

But these ten years yet there are no meditations of Webster's to 
compare ^\-ith them : and those, as we shall yet see, were \\T4tten, not 
out of his own head but strongly under the influence of a school.^ In 
Dekker's own work, moreover, there appears, about this very time, a 
long passage of curious meditation — Hippolito's over Infelice's pict- 
ure and the skull- — more like this before us than is any in Webster. 
There is no one thing in Wyatt, then, that we can claim with any 
degree of assurance for Webster ; nay, almost all of it we have already 
ceded to Dekker. 

II. THE MALCONTENT. 
Webster's Share. 
Marston's Malcontejit was first published in 1604.''' There were two 
editions ^ within the year, bearing these title-pages : 

The Malcontent. By John Marston. 1604. At I^ondon Printed by V. S. for 
William Aspley, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules Church-yard. 

The Malcontent. Augmented by Marston. With the Additions played by the 
Kings Maiesties servants. Written by Jhon Webster. 1604. At I/jndon Printed 
by V. S. for William Aspley, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules Church-yard. 

This second edition is enlarged in two respects : by the addition of an 
Induction, and by the insertion into the play proper of twelve pas- 
sages, ■' varying in extent from one line to a scene. The question now 
arises, how much of this is Webster's? Criticism has been verj' super- 
cilious with the question, and has onlv suffered the penalty for being 

' See below, Chap. III. 

'^ H. W.. Pt. I, IV, l,pp. 151-2.— Cf. also I, 1, p. 95, Duke's 4th speech. Cf. also 5a/., 
p. 250 : The breath that purles from thee, is like the Steame of a new-open 'd vault. 

^ Reg. July 5, 1604, for William Apsley and Thomas Thorpe. As the second edi- 
tion was published by the same persons, this entry is probably for the first. 

* Mr. Bullen (Marston, Introd., p. xxviii) says there are really three editions, two 
unenlarged. But judging from my inspection of the two British Museum copies 
(enlarged and unenlarged, 1604) and my comparison of them with each other and 
with Mr. Bullen's lists of variants, I should say there were at least four — two of 
either class. But these discrepancies within the class, though fairly numerous, are 
in every case slight — omission or addition of a word or two words, or the mistaking 
of one word for another, — and need not here be considered. Nor have I in my list 
of the inserted passages, p. 57, note, taken account of .such minor one- or two-word 
accretions to the text of the second edition. They are mostly immaterial — form- 
words, — arising probably from correction of earlier, or from the perpetration of 
fresh, printer's errors ; not, certainly, derived from any recension by Webster. 

' See p. 57 for the list. 

55 



wise above what is written. Relying on its own arithmetic and dis- 
cernment and holding the title-page to be a stupid blunder, it has 
answered unhesitatingly, " Induction and inserted passages." ^ Haz- 
litt alone paid some regard to the title-page, and in the very phrasing 
of his avowal of ignorance showed that he was on the brink of truth. 
"It is impossible to determine," he says, " which were Marston's 
augmentations, which Webster's additions." - 

It is not impossible. Consider for a moment the title-pages, the 
titles to the Induction and to the plav proper, and a passage in the 
Induction which explains the appearance of the play. The title- 
page to the second edition Mr. Bullen calls " curious " — " slovenly 
wording and vicious punctuation." ^ Not at all, if we will but put 
ourselves back for an instant into Elizabethan times. Realize that 
the plays issuing from day to day were printed and set forth like 
pamphlets — not world-literature, — as appealing only to a momen- 
tary interest ; and that in this second edition it is taken for granted 
that the old play of the Malcontent, often acted, lately revived,* and 
now a second time printed, was, both it and its author, well known. 
So, the title-page says only what it means ; so, wording and punctu- 
ation — the latter with a not uncommon inscriptional use of periods 
for commas — are natural and clear : The Malcontent, augmented by 
Marston. With the Additions played by the. Kings Maiesties ser- 
vants, written by John Webster.^ But the slovenly wording gives 
offence — the redundancy and ambiguity of "augmented" and "addi- 
tions." The augmentations by Marston, as the above reading 
unquestionably asserts, as Hazlitt seemed on the point of perceiving, 
and as the facts of the case will shortly prove, consist of the new pas- 
sages inserted (or rather, replaced) by Marston himself into the text 
of his own play ; and the additions by Webster are additions in the 
strict sense of the term, that is, the prefixed Induction.*' 



• Mr. Ward, II, 483-4, seems to be of the opinion that here and there in the body 

of the play proper we have to reckon with the work of Webster. Dyce, ed. 1857, p. 

xiii, says : " What the additions were we cannot exactly say." Swinburne and others 

are all of the saTne opinion. See Bnllen and Small below. * Induct., Haz., IV, p. 109. 

. "^ Haz., vol. IV, p. 105, after Dyce, ed. 1857, p. 322. =" Afizrj., introd., p. xxviii, note. 

^ Observe in fac, that the printer lets as much as possible stand, and yet takes 
pains to insert ausmented. which, with Small's emended punc. (/«/.), becomes either 
superfluous or tautologous. 

" Dr. Ph. Aronstein in an article on Marston ats Dramatiker, Eng. Stud., Bd. 20, 
at this point, as generally through his article, echoes Mr. Bullen ; finds the wording 
of the title " sehr souderbar," but adds, "offenbar auf Mystification berechnet " ! 
Dr. Aronstein .simply accepts the common view (cf. p. 382) that W. has made addi- 
tions to the text of the play proper, without any perceptible attempt to investigate 
the matter. Since this chapter was finished I have come upon the excellent treatise 

56 



The titles of the original quarto of the second edition tell the 
same storv. That to the Induction runs thus : The Induction to the 
Malecontent, and the additions acted by the Kings Maiesties setfants. 
Written by John Webster. ' Then, after the Induction, in similar large 
type, as title to the play proper, simply : The Malecontent. Actus 
Primus. See. Prima. ^ That is to say, the Malcontent wo^k ivithout 
'additions' acted by the King's Servants (or Induction), written hy 
Webster. A glance at the photographic facsimiles makes this quite plain . 

When we take these surprisingly plain and speaking facts, together 
with the statement of the Induction- that this old pla\' had been lost 
and found again, that it and the Spanish Tragedy had belonged to the 
Blackfriars company and the King's in common, and since the Black- 
friars had appropriated the one the King's was about to appropriate 
the other, the case seems not to need further argument. It was not 
the augmentations — the twelve passages inserted into the play proper, * 
— the title-page and titles inform us, that were played by the King's 
Company. Mere talk without action as they are, they would never 
have been added to a stage-copy. Rather it was an induction, which 
should have a fling at Blackfriars and explain the King's Men's position. 

This may seem decisive. If, however, the ' augmentations ' should 
in themselves betray a strange hand (whether evidently Webster's or 
not), the general impression that it is Webster's would be strength- 
ened. But they do not : the}' prove unmistakably part and parcel of 

of Mr. R. A. Small, entitled The Stage Quarrel of Ben Jonson and the so-called Poet- 
asters. " No one acquainted with Elizabethan printing," declares Mr. Small, " would 
hesitate to alter the punctuation thus : The Malcontent augmented. By Marston. 
IVith the additions played by the Kings Maiesties ser'vants, 2s.<ritien by John ll'ebster." 
I, for one, should hesitate : Mr. Small sets at naught both punc. and typog. composi- 
tion (cf. fac.) . And, as he interprets this, he does as much for the phrasing. Content 
with tautology, he makes no distinction between ' augmentations ' and ' additions," 
and understands that W. added scenes to the text of the play proper. He even 
declares that the evidence of style is in favor of W.'s authorship of these, as well as 
the title-page (p. 115). For the rest of Mr. Small's views on the subject see pp. 59. 
60, notes. ' As in the Brit. Mus. 1604 quarto. 

° Induct., Works. IV, p. 109 : Faith, sir, the book was lost ; and because 'twas pity 
so good a play should be lost, we found it, and play it. Sly. I wonder \ou would 
play it, another company having interest in it. Con. Why not Malevole in folio 
with us, as Jeronimo in decimo .sexto with them ? They taught us a name for our 
play ; we call it. One for Another. — Either Collier or Dyce first interpreted this. 

' These : I, 1, 146-188. Pietro and Malevole ; I, 1, 256-303, Mai. and Bil. : I, 3, Mai. and 
Pass. ; II, 2, 34 Mai. ; II, 2, 57-71, Mai. and Bil. ; III, 1, 33-156, Bil., Bianca, and Pass. ; 
IV, 2, 123-137, Mai. and Bil. ; V, 1 Bil. and Pass. ; V, 2, 10-39, Pass. ; V, 2, 164-194, Bil. 
and Mai.; V, 2, 212-226, Mai. and Men.; V, 3, 180-202. — All indicated in Bullen's 
notes. Small: " M. would not have been employed to add scenes to a play stolen 
from his own actors" (p. 115). We know nothing of M.'s attitude, but such scenes 
were never added to a stage-copy. They are "cut " passages, restored. 

57 



the orig^inal text, — before the play was " lost," or, i)erhaps, before it 
was ever acted. 

F'or, the peculiar sort of connection subsisting between the ' autjmen- 
tations' betrays the hand of Marston. Lacking in action or acting 
qualities, ' the ' augmentations ' lack also connection with the rest of 
the play ; but they are connected, five of them, by direct or implicit 
references within themselves. The scenes between Bilioso and Male- 
vole, and Bilioso and his wife, are connected by the thread of Bilioso's 
cuckoldry ; and those between Bilioso and Malevole are connected 
by Malevole's mocking and twitting- of Bilioso when the tables are 
turned. Now this trick of mocking and twitting is far more common 
in Marston than in any other of the Klizabethan playwrights I know, 
and is to be found in him elsewhere at least seven times : A>ifouio''s 
Ri'zriige, I, 1, 35-48 ; Diitc/i Courtesan, I, 1, 170, and I, 2, 258 ; IV, 5, 
12-15, and V, 3, 127-30; III, 2, 7-11, and V, 3, 127-8; Fa-wii, IV, 1, 
326-330, and V, 1, 110-113 ; IV, 1, 402-3, and IV, 1, 571-2 ; Sop/wuisha, 
III, 2, 35-38, and \', 3, 64-67. In Webster it appears late and but 
once, ^ and then in a different form, without the echoing of the very 
words of the victim, so characteristic of all the cases above. 

The matter and style of the 'augmentations,' moreover, are thor- 
oughly Marstonian. The bulk of them have to do with Bilioso ; and, 
these dropped, he would be reduced to nothing in the play. This could 
not have been the original plan, for Bilioso and his fool Passarello corre- 
spond exactly to Bahirdo and his page Dildo, and Castilio and his 
page Catzo, in Aiifoiiio and McUida, who appear repeatedly and for 
long periods, the master airing his vanities and absurdities before his 
page (or fool), just as Bilioso does before Pas.sarello in Malcontent, V, 1, 
— an 'augmentation.'* Likewise the scenes between Malevole and 
Bilioso (also those between Malevole and Maquerelle, Malevole and 
Pas.sarello) must be original, for they are meant to provoke Malevole's 
professional indignation and satire (or his inconsi.stcnt ribaldry), just 
as Balurdo and Castilio do that of Feliche, the malcontent in Antonio 
and Mellida, and Zuccone, Debile-Dosso, and the other scamps and 
ninnies do that of P'aunus, the malcontent ' in the Fazvn. Take them 



' ' Except the one line ! A very Marstonian line, by the way : smart and impudent. 

' The twitting appear.s : I, 1, 295-6, and II, 2, 62-3 ; II, 2. 64. and V, 2, 168. 

' Z). /.. C"., II, 3, and IV, 2 (Ariosto). — /). /.. C, pub. 1623, written 1621-23 (see 
above. Chap. I). 

* A. C> M.. Ill, 2, 1$ f : III, 2, 120 f; V, 1. Cf. also Mali., \\l. 1, 33-156. Cf. also 
with Male. V, 1, the passage in A. (2f Af., II, 1, 106 f, where Bahirdo and Korobosco 
discu.ss Balurdo's leg. 

° Faunus is not gloomy as Malevole and Keliche, but he has just the same part to 
play — satire, criticism, railing, playing the stops of various forms of vice and 

58 



away, and you take away one of the most characteristic features of 
Marston's come<^ly, — the wtty. foul -mouthed cj-nic insx>ecting and 
manipulating, during lulls of the action, some great fool and ass. 
And the style of the 'augmentations ' itself, — the words chosen,' the 
syntax and rhetorical structure,^ the impudent, startling, and often 
outlandish vocabulary and figures, the abrupt and jerky antitheses, * 
the outbursts of railing and satire,* the lively, but filthy and hideous, 
imaginations, '' — all are of a piece \*-ith the rest of the play, and with 
Marston as a whole. As Mr. Swinburne says, "the passages thus 
addef] to that grimmest and most sombre of tragi-come^lies are in such 
exact keeping with the previous text that the keenest scent of the 
veriest bloo<^i-hound among critics could not detect a shade of differ- 
ence in the savour.'"' 



affectation before him, and venting ribaldrj' of his own. For this whole matter of 
the malcontent as a type in Marston, see below. Chap. Ill, Sect, II. 

* There is no need for prolonged comparison of details of style, yet consider the 
followinfir very Marstonian langua^'e, utterly unlike anythini; in severe and classic 
Webster: I, i. 295 f. " mutual, friendljf-reciproca! kind of stead y-unan imoos- 
heartily-leagned." — and II, 2. 62 f : aLso II, 2, ^-'vJ, "The serpisfo, the strangury, 
an eternal uneflFectual priapism seize thee" (cf. Faun. I, 2, ]5>6, "the hip-ifout, the 
strangury, the fistula in ano," etc. : IV, 1. 434, " Don Zuccone, that dr5' scaliness, — 
that sarpigo, — that barren drouth" ; Z*. C, II, 1, 137-*!, " a strumpet is a serpigo") . 
Strangury , urpizo, priapitm never occur in Webster. So Catzo. V, 2. 220, which 
occurs also in Male., I. 1. 144, and V, 2, 237 ''both ed. \) , and, as a proper name, in 
>4. cS' A/., but rxeyer in W. The filthy son;; f which ne-i-er occurs in W.^ V. 2, 34 f, 
is paralleled in the same scene H. 1 fy within the text of ed. I. And the harping 
on revolting olfactorj- images would of itself be enough to convince c«e of M.'s 
authorship. Cf. ^a/c, pp. 294, 256, Zi2, etc. See below. Chap. III. But I do not 
exhaust the material at hand. 

* The aposiopeses, for instance, of which >Iarston is at all times fond : and as for 
syntax, his great bent for using an adjective alone for with only a personal pronoun) 
in the vocative, which never occurs in Webster, and seldom in any English outside 
<rf a Latin-school crib, as in the "Hence, ye gross jawed, peasantly — out, go!" 
of the augmentations, II, 2, 63, and V, 2, 16S. Cf. with this " Forbear, impure, to 
blot bright honor's name,''y4«/. A'«'., IV, 1, 126; "Now, thou impudent, if, etc.," 
1.139: Thonverj'poor, why dost not weep,'' 1.293; " Good honest, leave me," II, 2, 43; 
" Good, do not weep," II, 2, llS : y4.cS' i»/.. Ill, 1, 10 ; etc. It is one <rf M.'sear-marks. 

» See V, 2. 16&-193; cf. /"aa-«, IV, 1, 9-12. 

* See I, 3. 57-9: V. 3, 180 f ; I, 1, 287-293; II, 2, 69-71, 64-«, etc. ; cf. Feliche s and 
Faunus's. 

* I, 1, 170-180, " hideous imagination ! " — It is only a sample of Karston, both in 
this play and die Fatim. 

* y-ineteenlh Century, June, 1*86, art. Webster: and ISSS, art Marston, to the same 
effect. Vet, overawed by the usual misunderstanding of that title-page, Mr. .Swin- 
burne thinks Webster's hand must be there. — Mr. Small (p. IIS) is just as certain, 
on the other hand, that the evidence of style in these ' angmentatJons ' points to 
Webster's authorship. But he does not offer much discussion in support of his 
opinion. " Magnificent declamation and smoothness of versification unattained by 

59 



But what clinches the matter is the passage in Act I, sc. 3, 11. 18- 
22 — an augmentation — about the woman's horn, 

. . . and that's the reason the horn of a cuckold is as tender as his eye, eras 
that sjrowins' in the woman's forehead twelve .\ears since, that could not endure 
to be touched. 

read in the light of a pamphlet entitled : 

A miraculous and monstrous, but yet most true aud certayne Discourse of a H'oniati, 
noiv to be seen in Lon'don, of the ase of threescore yeares or thereabouts, in the midst 
oj whose forehead there gro7veth out a crooked Home of four ynches Jong- Imprinted 
at London, by Thomas Onvin, and are to be sold by Edward White, dtcellins at the 
little north dore of Paules Church, at the sign of the Gu?i, 1588.^ 

Note that these time-references are all exact. That in the augmen- 
tation is ' ' twelve \-ears, ' ' not ' ' eleven or twelve, ' ' nor a round num- 
ber like ' ' ten "or "a dozen ' ' ; and that of the pamphlet-title is, 
" Wfze" to be seen." Now Webster himself in 1604 could not have 
■written "twelve years," nor (whether written by Marston or Web- 
ster) would the actors in 1604 have spoken it. Marston, without 
thinking, simply restored to the press-copy this passage as it had stood 
in the text of 1600.- 



Marston in 1603." What Mr. Small means I am at a loss to understand. Certainly 
the aujrmentations are no way superior in style or verse to the rest of the play. 
Mostly, they are in prose, and they contain nothing- particularly fine .such as the 
address to Night or one meditation of .Malevole's (III, 1, 157-170 ; IV, 2, 139-151), both 
in the unaugmeiited text. 

' Quoted ill Bullen's yi/(;r,vA);/. vol. I. p. 233, from Crilchrist. 

^ The importance of the date of the Male, has never been appreciated, not only in 
its beariiitrs on the additioii-ausniientalion problem, but also on Hamlet. Male. 
Ill, 1, 250 f, — I lid, ho, ho, ho. art there old truepenny ?" — present in both editions, must 
be derived from the Old Hamlet ; for though the 1603 Q. does not contain the " Art 
tliou there, truepenny ? " (Globe, I, 5, 113, 150) , the corrupt state of that very passage 
argues the leaving of something out. Aronstein sets the date as he pleases at 1603. 
as thatof What Vou IVill at 1600 ! But why did Herr Aronstein contribute his chap- 
ter on the dates of Marston's plays to a scientific journal? Mr. Small, too (p. 115, 
116), allows a date no earlier than 1603 : for, since he conceives the ' augmentations ' 
of the play to be Webster's, the horn passage has for him no import. He bases this 
judgment on two " unimpeachable references to Shakspere's Hamlet " and an 
" ill-natured allusion to the Scots, which forbid us to date the play earlier than the 
latter half of 1603." The allu.sion to the Scots (V, 3, 24 f) , 

Bian. And is not Signior St. Andrew a gallant fellow now ? 

is in the unaugmented text, indeed, but it and the answer. 

Mar. By my maidenhead, la, honour and he agree as well together as a satin 
suit and woollen stockings, 

even if necessarily referring to tlie incoming of the Scots under James, are abso- 
lutely separable from the text — not a thread connects them with what stands 
before or after — and so may have been inserted, long after, for the joke's sake. 
(Cf. liiron, inf. p. 67, and M. would have no more reason than Ch. to cancel it.) 

60 



The IsDvcrios. 

This Induction, the earliest independent work of Webster's, then, 
that has come down U) us, is, as art, of little value. It was meant, 
indeed, only for the hour. Its jjurpose, as we have seen, is really no 
more than to justify the King's Men — perhaps only at the first per- 
formance — in reviving this old play ; and the parts in it are given Cto 
the confusion indeed of the rearlerj only in the form of the names 
of the actors at that performance. It is done in stereotyped style. 
There is the usual dispute between Tireman anrl spec-tators alwut sit- 
ting on the stage, discussion of the character and intent — especially 
satirical intent — of the play, and quantum of local allusions and Joe 
Millers. .Such, with variations, are the inductions to Marston's 
Antonio and Mellida anrl What Yon Will, to several of the y^lays of 
Jonson,' and to Beaumont's Kfii}(ht of the Burning J'eslle ; and 
though none of these Tor any others I know^ that are certainly pre- 
cedent to Webster's in date can be fixed upon as his model, a model 
(among the hundreds of plays now lost^ he very probably had. And 
like nearl}' all such compxjsitions, whether earlier or later, it is, except 
to the antiquary, exceedingly dull. The conversation is rambling and 
disjointed, and the characters are wooden or foolish. The jests, when 
of a more perennial interest than " Black friars hath almost sjx^iled 
Blackfriars for feathers,"^ are mouldy: the duodecimo-folio quibble, 
for instance, is to be found in Chettle ' and in Middleton, ' and Sly's 
" excellent thought " is of the same stamp as one in Antonio and 
Mellida.'' 

As a piece of his independent work, then, the Inrluction does Web- 
ster no credit, and offers no basis to warrant us in claiming much of 
the partnership work of this Period for him. It is rather the fxx^rest 



St. Andrew is no person of the drama ; like the " Marshall Make-room," Emilia's 
lover, whom she asks atjout in the next followinji speech, it is a name made up for 
the occasion and on the spur of the moment. And the allusions to Ham. are the 
one discussed alxjve, and another pointe^l out by VM\\<tn. Male, I, 1, 35f>-3. This 
latter is, to my mind, alU^K'ethcr " )mi»eachable ' ; and, l>esides, does not appear in 
Ham. till the 16fM ed. There is everythinK- for, then, and little atcainst, the date 
1600. And it is highly probable, too, that Marston, saturated as he was at this time 
with the very wording of Kyd's two Revenge Plays (see Chap. Ill), would make 
Malevole merely echo the Illo. ho, etc., of the Old Hamlet. — Hither this, or Shak.'s 
Ham. in existence in 1600 ! 

^Cynthia's Revels, Every Man out of his Humour, liartholomnu Fair. Staple of 
News. * Induction, p. l(/8. 

' " For thou art a courtier in decimo sexto,"' Patient Grissel, pub. 1603 (ed. Hiibsch, 
1.947). 

* Father Hubbard's Tale, Works, Vol. VIII, p. 64. 

•induct., p. Ill, and A. (2r M., II, 1, H\-m. 

61 



of all the inductions I have mentioned. Yet, when we remember the 
inferior qualit}' of most inductions and the merely occasional charac- 
ter of this, and when we consider Webster's own native unfitness — to 
judge from later work — for such a task, we may, at the same time 
that we bar him from any important part in the work of this Period, 
whether in comedj' or tragedy, nevertheless hold fast to the convic- 
tion, that he had, even now, literary powers above the "excellent 
thought ' ' of Sly. 

For, even in this induction there is evidence that Webster's st\'le 
was forming. There is here something of that terseness and allusive- 
ness — verging on crabbedness and obscurity, — and of that bent for 
concise, epigrammatic figure, so conspicuous in the IVhite Devil. 

why not Malevole in folio with ns, as Jeronimo in decinio sexto with them ? ' 

Sink. I durst lay four of mine ears the play is not so well acted as it hath been. 
Ciind. O, no, Sir, nothing, Ad Parmenonis suem."^ 

No, Sir, such vices as stand not accountable to law should be cured as men heal 
tetters, by casting ink upon them. Induction, p. 109. 

There is weight and point to that phrasing ; and in the first two 
excerpts there is a brevit}- of allusiveness that has made the commen- 
tators, and must have made the audience, scratch their heads. -' 

III. THE CITIZEN COMEDIES. 
Sources. 
There remain in this Period for consideration the two comedies of 
London life, Westivard Ho and Nortlnvard Ho. To Weshvard Ho 
there is, I suppose, no definite source assignable. The romantic ele- 
ment — the passion of the Earl for Mistress Justiniano, with her 
feigned death at the critical moment* — is, as we shall see, repeated 
from Satironiastix . Further than that, except possibly in regard to 
the device of the diamond,' there need be no source expected : the 
plot is too exceedingly simple and straightforward, and the incidents 
and situations too obvious. Three citizens' wives plan for a lark with 
three gallants ; in the midst of it, however, decide to keep within 

' Induction, p. 110. For the interpretation see the footnote, and the footnote in 
Marston, vol. I, p. 203. 

^ Induct., p. 110, note. Cf. footnote in Marston, I, p. 204, for the story. 

^ Such is the ca.se with the first two excerpts, and with the phrase " Blackfriars 
hath spoiled Blackfriars for feathers." Induct., p. 108. 

* V. infra, p. 85. 

^ The diamond which was given by Mrs. Tenterhook to the constable as security 
for Monopoly, came into Tenterhook's hands, and was to have witnessed against 
her; but, getting to her through still other hands, witnessed against him instead. 
It probably is derived from an Italian novella. 

62 



bounds ; and so face their husbands (who have come in chase of them, 
as they learn, from the brothel) on the offensive. That is all, and 
Dekker probably invented all of it. 

One incident, however, seems not like Dekker, and bears a strong 
resemblance to two incidents in 'Nlaxston'' s, Sophoiiisba (1606). The 
Earl's discovery of a hideous hag in the muffled figure which passes 
for the beautiful woman, is like Syphax's finding the black Vangue 
in his bed, and still more like his recognition of the unspeakable 
Erichtho ^ as his paramour. The situation may have been borrowed, 
if Sophonisba was already on the stage. -^ 

A source for the only part of the plot of Northivard Ho which 
cannot easily be accounted Dekker 's own invention, was long ago 
pointed out b^' Langbaine. The story of the gallants, Greenfield and 
Featherstone, who pretend not to know the name of the citizen, 
Maybery, as they meet him at the inn, and pretend to quarrel about a 
ring of Mrs. Maybery's, which, as they aver, Greenfield had received 
from her and lost in her company, and Featherstone, another lover, 
had found and dared to wear, is to be found in Malespini's Ducento 
Novelle, Parte Prima, Novella I. But with two necessar\' deviations : 
first, the story to the husband is a lie, intended to make trouble 
between him and his wife ; second, the ring, instead of really belong- 
ing to one of the gallants, had been snatched off the woman's hand 
before her husband's shop door. ' As, however, there is no edition of 
Malespini discoverable earlier than 1609,* Dekker and Webster's real 
source remains undetermined. Yet, the story in Malespini being of 
two Englishmen, John Fletton and Thomas Bampton, "^ retainers of the 
Cardinal of Winchester, while sojourning at Calais and Gravelines on 
occasion of ' a meeting of many princes and gentlemen, as well on the 
side of France as on that of England, ' we may presume that the story, 
unless a pure fiction, was then easily accessible to Englishmen through 
other channels than an Italian novelist." 



' Sophotiisba, III. 2, and V. 1. 

' There is no way of showing this, however. Fleay, indeed, sets a date 1602-3, but 
without all reason. In the address to the reader in the second ed. of the Fa7vn (both 
editions 1606) Marston says, "l will present a tragedy to you, which shall boldly 
abide the most curious perusal." ilVorks, II, p. 113.) This refers, as the marginal 
note in the 2nd ed. declares, to Soph.; but whether as a play already some time 
on the stage, or just to appear, it is impo.ssible to decide. 

* A borrowing from H. IV.. Ill, 1, p. 134, where Fustigo seizes Viola's ring before 
the shop . 

* Venetia, MDCIX. See Grasse's Tresor, Encicl. Hal., Nouv. Biog. Gen. 
^ " Bamptrone." 

* It was the occasion of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, in 1520, or, possibly, the 
occasion of Wolsey's later mission to France. Both times, the English staid several 

63 



Webster's Share. 

Further than this (that is, in regard to Webster's part in the author- 
ship), these two plays had best be discussed together, for they are very 
like. They have the same theme — the intrigue of gallants with citi- 
zens' wives, — and are animated with the same spirit of partisanship for 
the cit)% They depict the same light-hearted, adventurous, high-flying 
gallants, the same well-to-do, generous, jealous citizens, the same 
mirth-loving, coarse-grained citizens' wives. They are infused with 
the same rough-and-ready morality, liveliness and jollity, and pre- 
occupation with the stir and whirl of the day. Justiniano, the jealous 
husband in Wcsticard Ho, conducts the plot, so to speak, like May- 
bery, ' the jealous husband in Northward Ho, — tries, like him, to get 
even by giving other husbands horns, and exhibits a jealousy of the 
same conventional tNpe - ; Mrs. Justiniano, like Mrs. Maybery , has some 
delicacy, and yet, like her, is coarse-grained enotxgh to ride with her 
husband to see the fun at Brain ford ; and the courtesan, Lucy, in her 
establishment is like Doll in hers. , Both plays, moreover, are largely 
made up of a scries of tricks played on various characters, especially 
the gallants, explained to the audience beforehand and followed by 
crowing ^ ; both contain an arrest, and an expedition out of town at 
the end ; both are written in the same .simple, vivacious style, and in 
prose. ' For either ])lay, then, the (juestion of authorship is practi- 
cally the .same. 



weeks in Calais. 0.\e (' Oia ') and its castle are btit a few miles away. — The Cardi- 
nale di Viiicestre is, I tliink, surely Wol.sey. His title as Cardinal was, of cour.se, 
Roman, oi St. Cecilia tians Tiberim; but he received the bishopric of Winchester in 
1529, after resigning for it in tiirn IJath and Wells, and Durham. Malespini, who 
lived l,'i40 — c. l.'iSO, may have known only of this later bishopric. 

' With the help of his friend, Bellamont. 

■^ Both, like Ford in M. IV. H\, are settled types of the jealous man. Both 
expre.ss a notion of Othello's, and, very probably, previously to Othello and inde- 
pendently : " Being certain thou art false, sleep, sleep my brain. For doubt was only 
that which fed my pain," //'. 7/., p. 72. Cf. Maybery, A'. //., ISl, 6th speech. This is 
exactly the point m.-ute .so much of in Othfllo. as III, 3, 177-192 ; 3, 359-360 ; 364-7 ; 
383-7 ; 390. — It is astonishing that this most natviral and seemingly unconventional 
character, Othello, .shoiild here (III, 3, 177-192) give a full account of the " humor " of 
jealousy, as represented by stock figures such as Justiniano and Ford, and then in his 
own character and subsequent conduct — for all Coleridge and others have said of his 
passion not being jealousy — literally exemplify it! — Further, in both //'. //.and 
N. H. there is a jealous husband discussing comically, before a servant, his wife's 
treatment of him, — Honeycomb in /r. //.,p. 83, and Maybery in A^. //., pp.- 187-8. 
Both passages very certainly Dekker's. 

' As W H., 148-9, where the scheme is laid, and 162-3, where the women exult. 
Cf. the trick played on Bellamont in A'. H., 243-6, and his double retort, V, 1. 

* There is little verse in W. H., still less in A^. H. 

64 



Who, now, had the main hand in these very similar plaj's? Dekker, 
again, emphaticalh-. Mr. Fleay, who has a Vjent for slicing plays up 
and allotting them by the scene and act to their respective authors, 
has followed it here unprofitably. ' The fact is, there are hardly five 
or six consecutive pages in either play that do not exhibit pretty 
definite traces of Dekker's lively and facile hand, whether in situation, 
character, or phrase. All that is striking, all that is above the 
stereotyped and commonplace — and much that is not — points to 
him. Any detailed examination of the plays, page by page, is here, 
to be sure, impossible, and foreign to our purpose : but we can show 
at least how in the larger elements — construction, pervading spirit, 
situation, and character —the work bears Dekker's bold stamp. 

The quality and spirit of the play are Dekkerian . The bourgeois 
subject-matter and the .spirit of partisanship for the citizens are (as 
we shall see later, in connection with his obligations to the Merry 
Wives of Windsor^ certainly due to him. And his is the satire. For 
satire there is in Northivard Ho, though no one seems ever to have 
taken notice of it but Mr. Fleay. He declares the "hoary poet" 
Bellamont to be Chapman; and, thougli his arguments^ hardly 

' IV. tt. : {Biog. Chr., II, 269-70; " I. II, III, and IV, 2 a are by Webster" ; " the 
last two acts are nearly all Dekker's." N. H.: iib.. p. 270) " Dekker wrote the Doll 
scenes, I 2. II 1, III 1. IV' 1, and Webster, I think, the rest." What does Mr. 
Fleaj- make of such Dekker-like repetitions, as " I '11 find some idle bu.siness in the 
meantime : I will, I will in truth," IV. H., I, 1, p. 72, and " your eyes, your eyes," 
p. 74, and "hath undone us, hath undone us," p. 75? Or of Moll's naivete about 
"gentlemen who come from beyond .seas," p. 79; or of Honey.suckle as he looks 
in the glass in the morninK and bids the man go tell his mistress to make his nicht- 
cap larger — " I can allow her almost an inch; go, tell her .so, very near an inch," 
p. 83, and so on. If anything in the play is Dekker's, these things are. The .same 
is true of N. H. : p. 179, for instance, where Maybery thinks his boots have taken 
water, and pp. 181-2, where he mutters " I am foolish old Maybery, and yet I can be 
wi.se Majbery," — " I am but a foolish tradesman, and yet I'll beawi.se tradesman." 

* What Mr. Fleay says is as follows (Biog. Chr., II, pp. 270-271) : " The Dekker 
part is personally satirical, Bellamont being, I think, Chapman. He is represented 
as an ' old ' poet and play-wright. Chapman at this time was forty-eight. In III, 
1, Bellamont has made fools of 500 people, i. e., in the last line of All Fools 
addressed to his audience. In IV, 1, he writes of Csesar and Pompey as Chapman 
did in his play of that name. The marriage of ' Chatillion, the .\dmiral of France,' 
looks like an allusion to Chabol, Admiral of France, long after altered and revived 
by .Shirley. The Duke of Biron and his execution surely alludes to Chapman's 
tragedy, which was prohibited in 1608, after having been acted we know not how 
long : it is true that the quoted lines are not in the extant version, but that has been 
expurgated and altered, and these lines are very like Chapman in style. The 
' worthy to be one of your privy chamber or laureate ' means worthy to succeed 
Daniel, now in disgrace ior Eashuard //o and Philotas, but gentleman of the Queen's 
privy chamber and laureate notwithstanding this. Captain Jenkins, though with 
far less certainty, I would identify with Drayton." — Mr. Fleay can be, at the same 

65 



prove it, and his fvirther identification of the Welsh Captain Jenkins 
with Drayton is without any shadow of probahility, he is in the right. 

The evidence is this. Bellaniont is a poet, a dramatic poet 

associated with one of the companies.' He is old, and is repeatedly 
called white and hoary. He has classical tastes and acquirements, is 
the author of a Cccsarand Pompey, - and also is fond of laying his scene 
in the modern court of France.'' He writes both comedies and trag- 
edies. ' He is a respectable and dignified person, with a leaning 
toward high-flown diction.-' All this fits Chapman and no one else. 
Born in 1559," he is the oldest of the well-known dramatists living in 
1606, —older far than vShakspere, Jonson, Dekker, or Marston. The 
emphasis, however, is on grey hairs and respectability, not age ; and 
Chapman, as Wood reports, was a person of "most reverend aspect, 
religious and temperate, qualities rarely meeting in a poet, and was so 
highly esteemed by the clergy and academicians," etc' And every 
one knows Chapman was the classical poet of his day, the translator 
of Homer '^ as well as the poet of Casar and Pompey; and he, if any- 
one deserved the title, was the Knglish poet-laureate of France. 

Details agree. In Act IV, 1, 227, Bellamont is ridiculed at length 
for his predilection for French subjects : he is made to avow his pur- 
pose of having his tragedy presented in the French court by French 
gallants, at the marriage of Orleans and Chatillon, when he will stand 
behind the Duke of Epernon and be introduced by him to the King 
as worthy to be his poet-laureate." This nmst mean Chapman ; for in 
the case of eight of his plays'" he laid the scene unmistakably in 
France, Chatillon appears in one of them as a character, and Epernon 



time, wonderfully clever and erratic. Some of these errors I confute below. As for 
" Chatillion," it, certainly, is no reference to the play Chabol. See below. This 
Chatillon, in /ius. Rn/., is no less than Colitrny, .\dniiral of France, known in that 
day as Chatillon. Chahot is a late play. 

' A'.//., pp. 177, 188. 22.S. 

» N. H.. 177, 225, 226. 228. 

» N. H.. 227. 

* N.H., 177,226-8. 

' .V. //., 228. Astyanax is meant, perhaps, to be a parody of such monsters of 
prowess, simplicity, and ranting boastfulness as Bussy, Clermont, and Byron. 
. « Anthony Wood says 1.557. 

' Athenae Oxonienses, I.ondon. 1815. vol. II. p. 575. 

* Seaven Bookes of the Iliades of Homere, Prince of Poets, etc., L,ondon. 1598. 

* Con-sequently Chapman is not. as Kleay b>. supra, note. p. 65) thinks, candidate 
for poet-laureateship in Eng. It is the Duke of Epernon, introducing him to the 
V.xw^o'i France ! Why explain a pa.ssage the hardest way ? 

'" Humorous Day's Mirth; Monsieur Olive; Chahot; Pussy d'Ambois; Rerengeof 
Bussy; Conspiracy of Byron ; Tragedy of Byron; and Fatal Love, a " French Tragedie 
by George Chapman," reg. June 29, 1660. but now lost. 

66 



— "the only courtier I know there" — in four.' " Biron " is the 
reading for the latter name in the first quarto - — a later insertion, as 
the joke in the Welshman's echo " Peppernoon " proves, — and that 
must mean Chapman's famous Conspiracy of Charles, Duke of Byron ^ 
suppressed at the instance of La Boderie.* And, further, there is in 
Doll's speech (III, 1, p. 214) — " See who knocks. Thou shalt see me 
make a fool of a poet, that hath made five hundred fools." — an allu- 
sion to the la.st line of the Epilogue to Chapman's comedy, All Fools : 

We can but bring you meat, and set you stools. 
And to our best cheer sai% you all are welcome.* 

This allusion, detected by the keen-scented Mr. Fleay, seems at 
fir.st incredible; one feels inclined to explain "that hath made" in 
Doll's speech as harking back to " me " "^ for antecedent. But two 

' Chatillon appears in Bus. Rev., p. 212, Epernon in l)oth Bussys and both Byrons. 

^ Brit. Mus. copy. 

' Epernan is, so far as I can learn, Hazlitt's emendation. Dyce prints Biron, so 
the Brit. Mus. Quarto. It hardly seems po.ssible to read anything but the emenda- 
tion, for Biron, even pronounced French, could hardly become Peppernoon to the .son 
of Cadwallader. There is here a chance to fix more nearly the date of Chapman's 
Byrons, reg. June 5, 1608. I,a Boderie (not Beaumont, as Fleay always says) , 
French Amba.ssador, wrote to Villeroy, April 8, 1608, about the play on Marshal 
Biron, which he had had forbidden, and which so soon as the court was out of town 
was played again, until he took further measures against it. (Bib. Nationale, Ms. 
fr. 15984.) It seems likely that the authors of A'. H. (mentioned, remember, in the 
Isle of Gulls, 1606) had found it profitable before Aug. 6, 1607, the date of registering, 
to spoil the joke Epernon-Peppemoon, for the .sake of inserting the name of the new 
drama, then town-talk. This would be at the time of L,a Boderie's ./fr.f/ action. 
Perhaps, too, the passage relating to the execution of a " great man " (TV. H., p. 228) 
refers to the Tragedy of Byron, and it also (see below, footnote, p. 69) was inserted 
at this time. Anyhow, the plays cannot be earlier than 1607. 

* Between these la.st two words of the Epilogue there is in the old edition a paren- 
thesized hiatus, thus ( — ), which, taken in connection with the title of the play, 
seems to imply a very obvious rime. Another instance of this ingenious device 
(z. e., of substituting a word which is no rime for an objectionable riming word) will 
be found in the doggerel lines in An Humorous Day's Mirth (p. 44). — Note in Shep. 
herd's Chap., Plays, p. 77. Cf. Ham., Ill, 2, 295, for another ex. (sug. by Prof. Kitt,). 

' For, the 3rd person, " hath made," makes no great difficulty. Cf. Wyait, p. 48. 
Why hast thou broke thy promise to thy friend. That for thy .sake hath thrust 
myself: Wint. Tale, II, 3, 53, Hear me who professes myself; IV, 4, 429-30, Thou a 
sceptre's heir. That thus aflfectsa sheephook ; Tarn. Shrew., IV, 1, 104, Thou, it.seems 
that calls for company ; L. L. L., V, 2, 66, To make me proud that jests, etc. See 
Abbott's Shak. Gram., art. 214 (.some of the.se readings are those of quartos); and 
Franz's Shak. Grammalik , Halle, 1900, art. 519. Abbott .says, " We are, I think, 
justified in saying that the relative was often regarded like a noun by nature 3rd per. 
sing., and therefore uniniiuenced by the antecedent." The greater convenience of 
" poet " as an antecedent, and the passage from Sat. below, are here decisively on the 
side of strict grammar. Yet a passage in H. IV., II, 1, p. 122 (How many gentlemen 
hast thou served thus? None but five hundred, besides prentices and .ser\-ingrmen) 
may outweigh the passage in Sat. ; it depends on Roger's meaning. 

67 



further consuleralions art', I think, ilocisivc. .Ill I'\)ols was acted at 
Court, Now Year's Ni,nht, 1604, ' ami so, with its final stiiijjer, was widely 
known. And in Dekker's Satiroinasli v, 1602, occurs this passage, 
Jifiii. If yoM swcan-, duin iiic l'';iiiiiiiis. or Crispiiuis, 



To I'ofts (lain im-, or to I'luyirs ilani iiu', 
If 1 l)raiul Nou, or .\oii, lax .\ou, si-oiirKt' .voii : 
1 wonder tluii. that of five hiiiidrcd, foiirc 
Slioukl all iKiint with tlicir fiiiRors in i)1R' iiistaiil 
At one and the same man ? '^ 

which proves that with Dekker, at least, the round number live hun- 
dred was a common exiiression for ainlicint- at a phiy. 

Ik'llamont, then, is Chapman, and in A^orl/ncanf Ho we get a not 
unex])ecte<l retort to the bland i)lagiarisni of luxsiivard Ho.-^ Me, the 
author also of . /// Fools, is made a fool of, and he, the sedate, classi- 
cal student, and ' poet-laureate to the King of France ' (but who has 
lately been imi)risoned for a seditious play), is represented as paying an 
obsequious visit at a harlot's house and as penned up among madmen. 
Why, though, are there no direct references to /uislTca/d //oilsvM, and 
no skits at the other partners in that venture. Jonson or l\huslon ? We 
tuust suppose that our authors took the plagiarism not at all ill' — 
iiuleed, the present .satire of Chapman is pitched in a key of the best of 
good-humor, — and that they were only glad of the opportunity of chaff- 
ing Chapman in general. lie it was, anvwa\ , that wrote the main part 
of /uis/~('(7rt/ //<>; Jon.son, as he him.self says, "' imprisoned him.self vol- 
untarily, and there are few, if any, traces in the play of either his hand 
or Marston's. Dekker, moreover, was not read>- or disjiosed to start 
another war of the theatres ; with Jonson he was now at peace and 

' llalliwell's /'/'</. «/' (W /'A/.i.s, snh voc, 

".S<(/.. V. 1^8. Dcmetrins Inmiinis (or Dekker) isJiphraidinR Iloraec (jonson), the 
satirist. • — The render must i)\inctnate for hiniself anew. 

' The inu^ort of this eonelusion is for the history of Chapman's development con- 
siderable, (.'{rail) and /'unifirv (see above, p. Wi), foi' instance, which Cliainnan 
declares in his tle<licatory letter to the first ed. (l(\il) never to have touched the 
stane, mnst either have been acted before ItiOd in another form, or else have beeu 
known to onr avithors as an nnsucce.ssful pla\- : and see the datiny: of liyroii, \t. 67, note. 

This conclnsion affects nl.so, a.s we have seen, the qnestion of the series of citi- 
ren plays — /('. //., K. H., and A'. H. Thai we foiind, even on other k rounds, to be 
the probable onler, and this tends to confirm it. l''or there is no other reason 
known for their satirizing Chapnmn, whether in this ov any other play ; and this is 
ample. The pnblic wo\il<l rather expect a retort in .N'. //., and it nets it. The only 
diflicnltx is that A'. //. has no definite echo from or allnsion to the l>hiy A". //., 
except the situation of the man led to betra.vinn, unknown to himself, his own wife 
to another. (A'. //.. V ; i:. U.. Ill, J.) 

■* In consideratioji of the complimentary proloRiie prefixed to it. 

" Drnnnnond's Cotivetsations, ed. I,ainu:, 1842, p. 20. He there says IMarston and 
Chapman wrote it " between thcnt." And see above, p. 16, note. 

6S 



with Marston he had always been. Those personages, too, were 
not to be tanipererl witli, as Dekker knew, even in fun : with the 
" reverend " fij^^ure it was otherwise. 

For to Dekker, to t^ike up the main thread once more, belongs 

this satire. vSatire, strictly speaking, it is not. It lacks edge and 
fitness, discrimination and taste ; and it lacks meaning, as satire can- 
not. Making stately Chapmaii pay his respect.s to a whore, and shut- 
ing him up in Bedlam for wench-mad, is hardly satire. It is jolly 
raillery, anrl the horse-play of raillery, but it does not hit. But just 
such is the satire of Dekker generally. S^j in Salironiaslix he jjoked 
fun at angry Jonsr^n, without ever hitting his weak places, though 
here, having himself just been hit, he really tried. Dekker is too 
loutish anrl boisterous and goo<l-humored. With Jonson, indeed, he 
succeeds even less than with Chapman : because he is a little vexed, 
the ring of his guffaw is spoiled. Yet it is the same man who * un- 
trusses,' or hazes, Jon srjn, and makes an 'April fool' of Chapman. 
He has Jonson bullied and beaten, tossed in a blanket, and stabbed 
with a blunt dagger ; haled upon the stage by his satyr's horns, 
untrussed, and crowned with nettles ; just as he has Chapman l)Ound, 
struggling and kicking, by the marihouse-keepers. He makes the one 
hire himself out to sing the praises of hair, and the other treat with a 
pinchbeck lady about posies for cheese-trenchers. The verses of both 
are absurd. And what differences there are in Dekker's treatment of 
the two are to be exjjlained by his persrmal animus, which makes him 
in the one case only go to greater lengths. Jon.son is marie silly, 
contemptible, affected, cowardly — utterly unrecognizable as Jonson; 
Chapman in ridiculous situations remains — not much, indeed, but 
Sfjmewhat ^like Chapman. Jon.sfjn's ver.ses are keyed trj the highest 
j;itch of absurdity; Chapman's are no more than a parody.' But in 
lx)th cases it is the same method of horse-play raillery and blunt 
banter. In both cases the ridicule is all outward, without any char- 

' N. I/., IV, ],p. 228: 

Now the wild people, tcreefly of their ifritfs, 
l/mainK to see that which their thoughts abhorrvl, 
I'revetitcf] day, and rcxle on their own r<xifn, 
" .MakinK all nei^fhtx-^rintc houncs til'd with men. 
Mr. I-Ieay 'see above, p. 65, note 2) con.sidcrs it, indeed, Chapman's own, and from 
the original liyron. I can not think W); but there can be no queHtion that it is just 
parody. Oxymora are characteristic of Chapman : 

now our old wars cease 
To wage worse battles with the arms of peace. 

liyron^!, Consp., I, 1, p. 2)7. 
The idleness of such security, . . . 

The fixed stars waver and the erring stand. IV, 1, p. 2.36. 

What idle pains have you bestrjw'd, etc. IV, 1, p. 234. 

69 



acterizinj^, any hitting-off of foibles and defects, or mimicking of 
mannerisms, except such obvious ones as Jonson's small-pox and 
classicism and Chapman's hoariness and French proclivities. In both 
cases it is indisputably Dekker's satire. 

In the plot, too, of Westward Ho and Northward Ho, Dekker's 
hand is everywhere evident. It is simple, without anything that could 
be called under-plot ; and it is lively. The main characteristic, indeed, 
is liveliness — rather than rapidity or forwardness of movement, — a 
liveliness which is not inconsistent with abruptness or deviation. It 
does not march on steadily and consistently through an intricate com- 
plication to a definite resolution, as does that of the JMerchant of 
Venice. There is a goal, indeed, but no considerable complication for 
the persons of the drama to thread before they reach it, and so they 
may very well play by the way. The citizens' wives and their gallants 
have the lark they had planned vdth no let or hindrance, and so 
have time for all sorts of quarrels and pranks. Such by-play is of 
two sorts: first, purely unexpected, episodic action, — lively scenes 
like the mad-scenes, or the hazing of the bawd, lugged in on the spur 
of the moment ; and second, unmotivated tricks, practical jokes like 
those on Bellamont and Featherstone in No?'thward Ho, announced 
beforehand and crowed over at the end. And as they do go on to the 
goal, it is often abruptly, bj^ a leap, the knot of the complication, to 
change the figure, being cut instead of untied, as in the unmotivated, 
sudden change of mind and heart in the citizens' wives after they 
have reached Brainford,^ or the vicissitudes of passion in Doll. Such 
is Dekker in his independent plays. In Satiro)?iasti.r, the Honest 
liliore, and (in less measure) the Roaring Ctrl, the movement is 
equally lively and abrupt ; the complication is cut bj- as sudden and 
arbitrary conversions and adjustments, - and the fable, in part at least, 
is as much a tissue of lively episodes. ■' 

Wretched world, 
Consisting most of parts that fly each other ; 
A firmness breeding all inconstancy — etc. 

Byron's Trag., V, 1, p. 271. 
' In W. H. N. H. is, aside from its tricks and mad-.scenes, a more,coherent and 
tonipact plot. 

^ The conversioti of Uie Honest Whore like that of Mistress Jvistiniano ; the con- 
version of William Rufns in Sal. like that of the Earl in IV. H. : citizens' wives, 
Gallipot and Openwork, in Roar. Girl (IV, 2), wheel abont exactly as the wives 
Honeysnckle, Tenterhook, and Wafer do in IV. H. (V, 1) : and the Honest Whore 
suddenly contents herself at the end with a man other than the one she is infatuated 
with, like Doll. All these conversions, except that in the H. IV.. are arbitrary 
turning-points in the plot, and all are nnmotived and sudden. 

' Sat., the slight story of the marriage and William Rufus's intrigue, is bom- 
basted out with the hazing of Horace and Asinius. The i)lots of H. IV., Pts. I and II, 

70 



Turning from construction to matter of plot, we find it, too, to 
be Dekker's, whether borrowed from his earlier plays or itself to be 
repeated in his later ones.' Nothing, indeed, is more characteristic 
of Dekker than his repeating himself : in style and verse-form, even, 
he shows not much development and variet}', still less in dramatic 
situations. And this is the case in other plays than our comedies. In 
the Shoemaker, the Roaring Girl, and the Honest Whore there is a 
father trying to keep a son or daughter from what he considers an 
unworthy match, — -a slight romantic thread of story, in all cases, to 
which are loosely attached many picturesque, more or less episodic, 
low-life and genre scenes. In Patient Gn'sse/ and the Honest IVhorg 
there is the same story of a woman angering (or trying to anger) her 
husband by neglecting or spoiling the feast to which he had already 
invited people of quality.^ In Satiromastix and Patient Grissel 
a woman is wooed in rivalry, after much the same fashion, by a 
gentleman and a Welsh knight.-^ In both the Honest Whore and 
Match me in London there is the stor^^ ^ of a villainous nobleman who 
hires a doctor to poison a man in his way, the doctor . lyingly report- 
ing the deed as committed, and, when he receives nothing for his 
pains, turning to help the victim. In both the Honest Whore and 
the /t'yar?«_»- C/r/ a gallant pretends to a pliant citizen, at his wife's 
putting-on and in her presence, to have a claim to her. '' And in both 



are largely made up of mere tricks on Candido (avowedly only to try his patience) 
and others, and of their consequences (such as Fustisro's revenge in H. U'., II, 2). 
Even the closing scenes of the two Parts of //. W. — in Bedlam and in Bridewell — 
contain episodic action. 

'■ I. e., in the Roar. Girl (see below, p. 72 f), pub. 1611. — Mr. Fleay, indeed 
(II, p. 132), would have it composed 1604, Dec, for no perceptible reason. The first 
interest in Moll Cutpurse seems to have arisen 1610-11 ; there are, at any rate, no 
dates earlier. Cf. Chamberlain's letter to Carleton (see above pp. 14-15, note), Feb., 
1611, and John Day's book on Moll, reg. Aug., 1610. Middleton, IV. pp. 4-6. 

In consideration of D.'s and W.'s general proneness to repeat characters, situa- 
tions, and phrases (shown here in the case of D., and below, end Chap. II, etc, in 
the case of W.), D.'s repetition of those of IV. H. and A^. H. in later plays should be 
accepted as evidence that they are his own ; just as W.'s failure to repeat them 
should be evidence that they never were part and parcel of his mental life. So, too, 
with the type of citizen comedy as represented by IV. H. and N. FJ.. which is 
exactly repeated in Roar. Girl and never appears again in "W. 

* Grissel A- 1886 f, and H. W.. pp. 107-8 (narrated), noted by Bang, Eng. Stud., 
Bd. 28, p. 223. 

' Pointed out by Small, p. 122. In Sat.. Mistress Minever by Sir Rees ap Vaughan 
and by Sir Adam Prickshaft ; in Grissel. Gwenthyan by Sir Owen and Emulo. 

* H. If., Pt. I, IV, 4. Maic/i me. pp. 169-179. In this latter case, the doctor turn- 
ing without having demanded a reward — suspecting, probably, Don John's villainous 
intentions on himself. 

° //. IV., Pt. I, I, 2, and III, 1 ; Roar. Girl, 111,2, 

71 



Satiromastix- and 3lati/i ine in Lomioii a citizen's wife ' is enticed to 
court by the machinations of a lustful king. In Dekker, then, repe- 
tition of dramatic situations is only to be expected. 

Nor are we to be disappointed in regard to those in U'cstzcani Ho 
and NorthiCani Ho : nearly all of them Dekker has used before or 
uses later : 

1. In ]l'esf7i'arii Ho, IV, 2, the scene in the Earl's mansion, where 
Mistress Justiniano, the object of his lust, is discovered to him dead. 
Like Safiro)iiasti.\\'- pp. 251-63. In both, the Karl (or King) had 
enticed the woman to his house ; and now, l)idding music sound, 
enters the room exultantly ; but only suddenly to discover her 
poisoned, dead. In both, the husband avows the deed, and re- 
proaches the libertine; the latter repents; and, the danger over, the 
woman, having taken only a sleeping potion, awakes. Like this, too, 
is the first scene in the Honest ll'/iorc, in which the Duke, seeking 
to thwart the love of Ilippolito for his daughter, gives her out for 
dead, but, as he is conveying her body through the streets, is forced 
to set it ilown that the lover may see her face. She, too, recovers 
from the potion, and shortly after awakes. Like it, again, are both 
Safiromas/i.v and Match me in London in the matter of the seduction 
of the woman of lower rank to the libertine nobleman's house. 

2. In Westward Ho, at the beginning of the play, Justiniano feigns 
to be leaving the country ; but really disguises himself as a writing- 
master, in order in the rest of the play to carry out his plans in secret. 
So in W\^ Shoeniaker' s Holiday, I, 1, p. 10, and II, 2, Rowland Lacy lets 
it be reported that he is fighting in France, and really becomes a Dutch 
shoemaker, in order in the rest of the plav to prosecute his love-affair. 

3. In Westivard Ho, I, 2, the gallant. Monopoly, has financial deal- 
ings with the citizen. Tenterhook, husband of his friend, somewhat as 
the gallant, Laxton, in the Roaring Girl, III, 2, has with Gallipot, the 
husband of his friend. 

4. In ll'estiCard Ho, III, 2, there is an arrest of a gallant by a 
Sergeant Ambush and his yeoman. Clutch ; as in Northxvard Ho, I, 2, 
by two sergeants ; as in the Roaring Girl, III, 3, by Sergeant Curtleax 
and Yeoman Hanger. In the Hottest Whore, Pt. I, IV, 3, moreover, 
Candido is arrested by officers, and in Pt. II, Candido with others. In 
tlie first three instances the sergeants and 3'eomen are very like in 
character — important, and stern against evil-doers. 

5. In Westward Ho, V, 2, Sir Gosling's forcing the bawd to dance 
and sing is like Tucca's hazing of Horace and Asiirius in Satirotnas- 

* Celestine, by name, in the one, and Tonniella in the other. 

^ Swinburne notices this in the introd. to Shepherd's Chap., p. xxix. 

72 



tix.^ In both, the tyrant is drunk, and the frijjhtened victims plead 
for mercy. Cf. Satiroinastix, X)\). 220 f, 234 f, 257 f. Similar is Bots's 
treatment of Candido, //u/ir.s/ U7ion\ Pt. 11, IV, 3, and Candido's 
plt-adinj^. 

6. In U'cslivard Ho, II, 2, a woman — Mrs. Justiniano — turns from 
her evil way, and, on the next approach of the hawd, curses her. 
Exactly so in the /loiiesl IVhore, I't. I, III, 2, the repentant Hellafront. 

7. In the last acts of PVestward Ho and Nortlnuard //y the esca- 
pades of citizens' wives and gallants to Brainford and to Ware, husbands 
following. Like this is the trip to Ware the Roaring Girl pretends to 
undertake with the impudent gallant who proposed it ' ; .-md the trip 
to Brainford which the citizens' wives had agreed to, but suddenly at 
the last moment refused.' Somewhat similar, too, is the expedition 
out of town at the end of the Honest Whore, Pt. I, and even that to 
Bridewell, at the close of Pt. II. This was evidently a favorite device 
of Dekker's, in order to bring all the characters of the play together 
and to make, with ensuing complications, a lively clo.se. vSo, at least, 
in Westward Ho, Northward Ho, and Honest Whore, Pt. I. 

8. In Northward Ho, II, 1 (and after), a fiery Welsh Captain wooes 
Doll Hornet with something of the jealousy and fervour of rivalry to 
be found in the wooings of vSir Owen and Sir Vaughan ap Rees ; and, 
again like .Sir Owen, he promises her a coach and horses. ' 

9. In NorthTt'ard Ho, III, 1, and IV, 4, the trick of getting the 
respectable man, Bellamont, into the com])any of (a.) whores anrl (b) 
madmen. Like it (a) in Hottest Whore, I't. II, IV, 3, and V, 2, is 
Candido's being inveigled into hobnobbing witli the old bawd and 
Bots, forced to 'drink, dance, and sing bawdy .songs,' and lodged 
among the whores at Bridewell, and (h) in Pt. I, IV, 3, and V, 2, his 
being carried off, amid protestations like Bellamont's, to Bedlam. In 
all instances, it is practical joking'^ and hor.se-play. In connection 
with this, there are, in both plays, ma<l-scenes of a like stamp, intro- 
duced as a sort of diversion . " 

10. In Northward Ho, III, 1, Bellamont's calling ujxjn Doll becomes 
the cause, beyond his intention, of her falling in love with him and 
despising herself and her ways. vSo in the Honest Whore, Pt. I, II, 1, 
and IV, 1, Hippolito, calling upon Bellafront, converts her and unwit- 
tingly causes her to love him. ' 

' I-leay siiKge.sts this. » Koar. (,hi, II, I, and III, 1. ' lb.. IV, 2. 

* See above, p. 71. I<ast point noted Ijy Bantr, AV/x'. S/ud., lid. 2H, p. 221. 
" Kxcei)t Candido's imprisonment at Itridewell, which is a mistake. 

* A'. //.. 24()-4, and //. IV., 178-IH4. 

' Doll is not exactly converted; but, in her rude way, she is- at least disgusted 
with herself, — "() filthy rot'ue that I am," — pp. 219, and at p. 232 she is humble 

73 



11. Thereupon, in Northward Ho, IV, 1, Doll comes to Bellaniont's 
house, ami though he had just forbidden any visitors, forces her way 
to him, and passionately avows her love, only to be scorned and 
rejected. Exactly so in Honest Whore, IV, 1, Hippolito forbids callers, 
yet cannot keep out Bellafront, who avows her love and is rejected. 

12. In Northrvard Ho, V, 1, Doll suddenly contents herself at the 
end with another, inferior mate, who is entangled into marriage with 
her, through no fault of hers, by a trick. Likewise in Ho>ust Whore, 
Pt. I, V, 2, Bellafront and Matheo.' 

13. The song at the close of Westivard Ho \^ c:&x\.si\\\\\ Dekker's ; 
that clear, merry note ayd lilting rhythm were never Webster's. 
These qualities are to be found in the First Three Men's Song in the 
Shoemaker, III, 5, and in the Second Three Men's Song, V, 4. 

The setting aside of so great an arrav of situations leaves few 
remaining to \Vel)ster : as little must be left him from the characters. 
The gallants, citizens and citizens' wives, whores and bawds, Welsh- 
men and Dutchmen, are ])robably all Dekker's, for thev all appear in 
previous plays, such as the Shoemaker, Satiroinastix, and the Honest 
Whore, as well as in his later ones.'- They ap])ear in none o{ Web- 
ster's, whether comedy or tragedy. * 

A few of these tj'pes — those that present much individuality — we 
will examine a little more closely. The citizens' wives, the bawds, 
and the whores are done in a striking stj-le, in continuation, perhaps, 
of Shakspere's types, — the Merry Wives, ^ Mrs. Quickly, and Doll 
Tearsheet. Dekker's they are, at all events, through and through, 
and, as presented both in our comedies and in Dekker's other works, 
they have much in connnon. All three — citizen's wife, whore, and 
bawd — affect virtue, speak of it freely and complacently, bridle up at 
any infringement of what they call the proprieties or their own dignity, 
are coarse, in fair weather good-natured, and naive. The citizens' 
wives — Tenterhook, Hone3-suckle, and Wafer in Westzi'ard Ho-' as 
well as Gallipot, Tiltyard, and Openwork in the Roaring Girl, — the 

and " will be clean." In both cases, but more enipliaticall\- in that of Doll, love is 
the cause of the change. 

' In H. IV. the trick is Bellafront's ; but slie is clainiiiiK only her due from 
Matheo. 

" They ai)i)ear, too, somewhat in tlie same apportionment. In /r. //. three citizens, 
three gallants, three citizens' wives, one whore, and one bawd ; in .^'. //. the same, 
except that the gallants number two. citizens and wives each one. In A'oar. Girl 
there are again three gallants, three citizens, three wives, one whore. 

* There are, indeed, gallants in the ('. C; l)ut they are of the Kletcher-Massinger 
type. See below, Chap. IV, Sect. II. 

* That is, Mrs. l-'ord and Mrs. I'age. When I mean the play I use italics. 

* P. 110. 

74 



whores — Doll Hornet' in Northward Ho as well as Bellafront •^ in the 
Honest Whore — swear by their virtue, and all, even the last named, 
make much ado at the last moment to defend it. The bawds and 
whores are incensed when given their titles, and Mrs. Birdlime in 
Westxvard Ho, like Mistress Horseleech in the Honest Whore, con- 
siders a bawd not a bawd at all, but an honest, motherly woman.'' 
And one and all, not omitting the citizenesses. Mistress Minever in 
Satiromastix and Margery in the Shoemaker, are still more insistent 
on the minor proprieties — will not abide the coarseness and boister- 
ousness of men, as drunkenness,' tobacco-smoking and spitting,'' 
' ' swaggering, " ^' " conjuring, " ' or unseasonable familiarity. ^ A rude 
and laughable prudishness marks them all, whether of foul name or 
fair name, both in our comedies and in Dekker's other plays. 

The whores, like Doll Hornet and Lucy (to compare Dekker's 
types with the representatives in our plays), are given to Billingsgate 
and bravado, to loud anger and to striking." The citizens' wives, like 
those in Westward Ho, are given to naive blundering and Parting- 
tonism, ' " to merriment and larks, to playing the game with a gallant 
to the last moment and then virtuously and indignantly bilking him. 
Characteristic, indeed, of both citizens' wives and whores, whether in 
our comedies or elsewhere in Dekker, is this wheeling about at the 
end : the citizens' wives undergo a sudden alteration, and help one an- 
other to cheat the gallants, as in Westivard Ho and the Roaring Girl ; 
and the whores (including Mistress Justiniano ' ' ) fall really in love and 
by their love are converted, curse the bawd, and take on a new, 
unworldly tone, as do Doll Hornet and Bellafront. ' - And as for the 



* N. //.,205. == //. W.. 119. 
' W. H., 93 and 154, H. H\. 283, the same expre.ssion. Cf. Bellafront's indignation, 

H. IV., p. 124; Doll Tarsret's, p. 279. 

* W. //., 143. 

» H. IV., 120; IV. H., 147 ; Shoemaker, 41. 

« W. i¥., 143; the bawd, 123-4, 133; Uicy. 129. 

' Sat., p. 230, Widow Minever and her dread of "drawing." " N. H., 184-5. 

* W. H.. 127. but Uic.v is mild ; N. H., I, 2 : III, 1 ; pp. 219, 233, etc. ; H. IV., Pt. I, 
II, 1. Cf. also in this scene Bellafront's anger at Roger her servant, with Doll's at 
the Drawer, TV. H., I, 2. And see especially the conduct of the " brave " and scurri- 
lous whores, H. IV., Pt. II, last scene. 

'" Sal., 229, 230, Minever's " enamel 'd " for enamoured, misunderstanding of con- 
juring, and taking Babylon to be in I/)ndon ; IV. //., 145-6 ; Roar. Girl. 

' ' For .she was on the point of becoming one. But, being already married , .she does 
not fall in love. 

•* Cf. the astoni.shingly new and meek tone of Doll, N. H., 232, and H. IV.. Pt. I, II, 
1, end, after (and in Doll's ca.se before and after) the worst of abuse and ribaldry, 
and W. H.. 97-8. The cursing of the bawd in the case of Mrs. Justiniano and Bella- 
front, W. H.. 98-9, H. IV., Pt. I, III, 2. 



75 



bawds, thej', like Birdlime, are most jealous of their reputations, 
scandalized at the mere word bawd, ' honest and motherly, ' and greatly- 
given to aqua vitse ' and tricks of the trade. - All these coarse-grained, 
loud, and jolly women, then, are of one flock, and that is Dekker's. 

Manifestly, Dekker's, too, are the Dutch Drawer and Merchant, 
and the Welsh Captain.' A Dutch Hans ^ had already appeared in 
the Shoonaker, as well as a Dutch skipper ; and Captain Jenkins in 
Northivard Ho is, in the character of his Cambrian English '^ and 
blunders, his generosit\', the ardor of his suit for a woman's hand, 
his pugnacity and ready, childlike placability, the counterpart of Sir 
Vaughan ap Rees in Satiroinastix . 

The rest that may be Dekker's we must pass over — less strongly 
marked characters, the humor, the phrases and proper names, '^ the 
structure of the verse, " and that anomaly in Dekker, his eruptive, 
sulphurous style. - For enough has been adduced to show the plays 
— both of them — in character of satire, in plot and situations, in 
characters, to be thoroughly his. 

Yet one thing remains. Who created this type of intrigue between 
citizens and gallants? And under what influence? Dekker, once 
more, and inspired by the Merry Wivesof Windsor a.uA by the characters 

' All his bawds use it and speak of it. H^'. H.. 100, 131 ; H. IV., 283 ; JV. //., 240. 

" IV. H., IV, 1 ; H. IV., pp. 143-5. The same trick, spoken of on p. 143, appears in 
the action of JV. H., IV, 1. 

' Web. never vises dialect, or any foreign tongue except (sparingly) I,atin and 
Italian, and those as quotations (except I,awyer's Latin in IV. />.). 

* In W. H. and N. H. — L,acy is disguised as Shoemaker Hans. The skipper and 
he both talk broken English and pure Dutch (pp. 21, 32, 33), like Drawer Hans, 
VV. H., 103-104, and Hans Van Belch, N. H., \°il-'i. They e\-idently spring from one 
pen, that of one who knows Dutch fairly well. 

^ See Bang's remarks {Engl. Stud., 28, p. 218) on the similarity of Jenkins' dialect 
and phrases {God udge me! etc.) to Sir Owen's in Grissel. Sir Rees ap Vaughan 's in 
Sat. is out of the same cloth. 

* Names like Bellamont (cf. Bellafront in H. IV) ; Hans, Doll iJV. H., H. IV., 
Shoemaker): Moll {Jl\ H.. N. H., Roar. Girl); Birdlime, Fingerlock, Horseleech, 
Bountinall, etc. ; phrases like Graybeard, goat's pizzle, N. H., 233, H. W., 2.iA, Sat., 
200 ; leek having a white beard and green stalk. N. H., 230, and H. IV., 202 ; "Baa! 
lamb" from a woman, IV. H., 110, and /^. W., 187; "Go by, go by Hieronimo," 
Shoemaker, 17, IV. H., VXi,Sat., 202; "pewfellow," references to Ostend, etc., etc. 
Still others are noted by Bang, Eng. Stud., Bd. 28, in connection with Grissel. 

' The verse in IV. H. and N. H. is in every way like Dekker's. Rimes in VV. H., 
134, 135, 139. 

* Extravagant diction at passionate moments : 

Wife. L,et sulphur drop from heaven, and nail my body 

Dead to this earth ! That slave, that dammed fury. 

Whose whips are in jour tongue to torture me, etc. iV. //., 191. 

Cf. A'. //., 232 ; H. IV., 233, 269, Hippolito. 

76 



Doll Tearslieet and Quickly in Henry IV. For the plot of the Merry 
Wives is very like that of our comedies : a thoroughly bourgeois 
material and atmosphere, tricks and countertricks all round the pro- 
gram of which is announced beforehand, ' the main thread of action 
being the constantl}' repeated and baffled intrigue of the knight 
Falstaff with the citizens' wives Mistresses Ford and Page.- The 
Merry Wives are like Dekker's in their free and complacent speak- 
ing of their virtue ^ ; in their indignation, and their upholding of the 
honor of their sex * ; in their merriment, and their fooling of the pur- 
surer to the top of his bent instead of repulsing him ; and in the 
crudeness of their satisfaction.'^ And their husbands are of a piece 
with the citizens in Weshvard Ho and Northivard Ho. Ford, like 
Ma3'bery and Jvistiniano, is constitutionalh^ jealous, and, like Tenter- 
hook, Honeysuckle, and Wafer, comes down with a company to catch 
his wife. Mrs. Quickly, the go-between, in her " motherliness and 
honesty " and her tenderheartedness toward innocence and youth ^ is 
very like the bawds. Doll Tearsheet in her Billingsgate, in her bois- 
terous anger, in her fullness of affection for a man who will draw for 
her, is certainly the model for Doll Hornet, " as well as for the 
" brave " and vociferous Doll Target and her sisters in Part II of the 
Honest Whore. Mrs. Quickly's Partingtonism and garrulity,- and 
her own and Doll Tearsheet's aversion to unseemly and boisterous 
deportment ^ have been inherited by the citizens' wives in Westward 
Ho and by Doll Hornet and Mistress Minever. Finally, for a Captain 
Jenkins there is a Welsh parson, with similar dialect, blunders, and 
generous, fiery, yet quickly placable, temper ; for the Dutch of Drawer 

' There are, indeed, tricks ylayed on nearly every character in the play ; in this 
respect, and in the constantly repeated duping of Falstaff, the M. IV. JV. is more 
©Id-fashioned than IV. H. or N. H., resembling plays like Chapman's Gentleman 
Usher, Mons. Olive, and All Fools, rather than an intrigue play such as our comedies 
or as A Trick to Catch the Old One, which, coming later, have shaken off some of the 
earlier stiffness and monotony. 

' They are not called citizens' wives, but it is evident that they are of similar rank 
and station with the wives in Dekker's two comedies. 

^ II, 1, 88; IV. 2, 220-2. 

♦ II, 1. 

° As in last sc, etc. 

' See her tender care that the boy should know no wickedness (II, 2), and her 
compassion on Mistress Page. Cf. the Bawd's tenderness toward innocence and 
youth, A^. H., 93-5. 

' Cf. esp. what she says on this subject to Jenkins (202) with 2 Hen. IV, II, 4, 
232-240. 

° Cf. the delightful long story of Mistress Tenterhook in //'. //., 143-6, much in 
the manner of Quickly. 

° See 2 Hen. IV, II, 4, where Doll will not let swaggering Pistol come up, and 
Quickly will have no swaggerers, cannot " abide " them. 

77 



Hans and Merchant Van Belch, the French of Doctor Gains ; and for 
the expedition into the country at the close, where the women meet 
their gallants and all the characters are brought together, that to 
Heme's Oak in Windsor Park. 

That Dekker drew some of this material from Shakspere directh' is 
made almost indubitable by precise reminiscences — so early as in 
Satiromastix — from Henry /Fand the Merry Wives '; and so there 
is nothing left to be accounted for but the partisanship of the city. 
The Merry Wives, having nothing to do with London, are moved to 
stand up only for their own sex against the other, not for citizens' 
wives against gallants. This could easily be added by so loyal a Lon- 
doner as Dekker. No dramatist knew the city so well, or had such 
sympathy and affection for its life and interests.- He himself was a 
citizen, which Webster and even Shakspere never were, to the core. 
His characters are always bourgeois, or else they are the citizen'' s con- 
ception of lord or lady ; his morality is the rough-and-ready, outward 
morality of the jolly, respectable citizen : and by a thousand pictur- 
esque touches of London local color he is always reminding us, even 
when the scene lies in Milan and Naples, that it is only the life of 
the city he depicts.'' And if he loved London, he was the man to 
take its part, to be its champion, as he is for England and Protes- 
tantism in the Whore of Bahyloti. In some of his plays he does. 



' The M. W. W. and Sal. both appeared in print in 1602. Mistress Minever's 
abundant Partingtonisni and bhinders, her horror at "conjuring" and drawn 
swords {Sat., 220 and 230) like Mrs. Quickly's at "swaggering" and "naked 
weapons" (2 Hen. IV', II, 4); her affection for Tucca and her determination at the 
same time not to be conycatched by him {SaLllZX"). quite like Quickly's attitude 
toward Falstaff. Cf. also " wehaue Hiren heere " (5'a/.,245); " Ma. Justice Shallow " 
(p. 212); " feed and be fat, my faire Calipolis " {Sat.. 230 ; 2 Hen. IV, II, 4. 193, though 
quoted of course from Alcazar); the surprising coincidence between M. IV. IV., II, 
1, 50 f, and Sat., p. 205 — "Mistress Minever — you shall be knighted by one of us " 
(i. <?., married to a knight). Cf. also a possible allusion to J Hen. IV, I, 1, 87-8, in 
Doll Hornet's " I'm as melancholy as Fleet-street in a long vacation." IV. H., 185. 

Since writing the above I have come upon Prof. Bang's discussion of the Welsh 
dialect on the Klizabethan stage {Ens'l. Stud., 28, esp. 226-7) and of the question which 
was beforehand in introducing it, Dekker in Criisset, or Shakspere in M. II'. IV. 
The question, as Prof. Bang himself admits, cannot be settled, because the date 
.of the first performance of the AI. IV. H'. is not known. It may well be, as Prof. 
Bang is inclined to think, that Shakspere in this respect imitates Dekker. But 
even so, that does not affect our position in maintaining, on the definite basis 
of Dekker's acquaintance with the M. IV. IV. and Hen. IV, proved above, that 
Dekker, in turn , formed the citizen comedy on the type of that play and modeled 
his characters (aside from the Welsh) after those. 

^ See, besides his plays, his tracts — the Dead Tearnie, Gu/t's Hornbook, Bellman 
of London, etc. 

^ As in H. IV., Pts. I and II. and Match me. 

78 



In the Shoemaker, the Lord Mayor tries to keep his daughter from 
marrying a gentleman, the Earl tries to keep his nephew from 
marrying a citizen ' s daughter, and the whole drift of the play is to 
celebrate the ' ' gentle craft ' ' of shoemaking ; and in the Honest 
Whore, Parts I and II, the gallants who came to taunt and tease a 
citizen are baffled by him and drubbed by his stout apprentices. 
Surely, then, it was Dekker who created this type of citizen play, 
imitating Shakspere in character and general scheme of plot, but 
adding the specificallj' citizen spirit' and London atmosphere. 

As between Dekker and Webster, of course, there is no question : 
the partisanship of the cit}', as well as the whole character of the citi- 
zen comedy, is none of the latter's. In the rest of Webster's plays 
we see or hear no more of citizens and their doings, and get not a 
breath of IvOndon air nor an echo from these comedies. Dekker, on 
the other hand, follows his vein ; and in the Roaring Girl and the 
Second Part of the Honest Whore he deals again with London, with 
citizens and gallants, just as in these comedies, the First Part of the 
Hottest Whore, the Shoemaker' s Holiday, and Satiromastix . 

How little is left in this Period to Webster ! The wooden Induction 
to the Malcontent, and some slight, undetermined part in the more 
colorless and stereotyped portions of Wyatt, Westward Ho, axviS. North- 
ward Ho, under the shaping and guiding hand of Dekker ! It is a 
long road from this sort of thing to the White Devil. Yet Webster 
had six years to make it, and there is evidence even in the Induc- 
tion, as we have seen, that at least his condensed and crabbed style 
was forming. 

IV. DEKKER'S INFLUEN'CE. 

And what of Dekker's influence upon him? In all but two of the 
plays of this Period Dekker had been a partner, and in those three 
which are preserved his hand is uppermost and everNwhere. But it 
never appears again. After Northward Ho the White Devil, Malfi., 
and the Z>^z'z7'.y Law-Case! Webster never again enters the field of 
the chronicle-play or the citizen-comedy, never touches one of the 
types there developed, and in sentiment or dramaturgy, style or verse, 
shows hardly a trace of the homel\ and lively master of his appren- 

' There were citizen plays before this, of course, as Every Man in his Humour and 
Every Man out of his Humour, but lacking the spirit of partisanship. — I do not 
wish to exagerate the partisanship of the city, or of the citizens" wives, in these 
plays. While Dekker always makes this clear, his method of characterization, 
inherited from Shakspere, is comic, condescending, and slightly satiric. Their 
prudishness and touchiness, and their real coarseness I 

79 



ticeship. He who in later plays repeats himself in phrase — hardly in 
situation — as much as Dekker, never reverts to these.' This may 
prove the slij>htness of Webster's connection with these early plays. 
It may be proof of his youthfulness at this time, and of the originality, 
the .strong innate bent, of a nnnd that could develop afterward in .so 

' Kor repetitions in sit. iiiul pliiasc, see above, pi>. .SS-40. — Repetitions of phrase 
Uyce rey:istere(l lonsr since in his footnotes ; and from these Dr. Vopel (in his gen- 
erally qnite vahieless Ziir. Diss, and lireni. Projj. on John Webster, ISSS), has col- 
lected .sonic of the most notable. I subjoin such as are not acUhiced l>y him, or by 
me elsewhere. Many of these, too, are gathered fron\ D.\ ce. ."^ee still others, from 
W. D. and Mai. only, in .Sampson, pi). xli-.xliii. 

1. And keep the wolf far thence, that 's foe to men, 

For with his nails he '11 diy: them up again. /''. D.. 127. 

The wolf shall find her grave, and scrape it up. Mai., 249. 

2. She .stains the lime past, lights the time to come. 

Mai., 165, and Mon. Col., 264. 

3. he 's a mere stick of sugar-candy ; 

You may look (juite thorough him. A/al.. 203, and />. /.. C^, 33. 

go, go, brag 

4. How many ladies you have undone like me "'. D., 86. 

do, .go, brag 
You have left me heartless : mine is in your bo.som. Mai.. 176. 

Co, go, 
Complain unto my great lord cardinal. II'. D-, 2^. 

go, go, comi)lain to the .great duke. "'. D., 33. 

5. As void of true heat as are all painted fires. 

Or glow-worms in the dark. D. I.. C. 84, 

Cf. Glories like glow-worms, etc. IC. D., 99, and Mai., 242, given by Vopel. 

6. Applied to Vittoria : 

No less an ominous fate than blazing stars. W. D., 65. 

To princes : 

Shall make me like a blazing ominous star. ll>., 135. 

O, thou hast been a most prodigious comet. If>., 139. 

7. Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent. U'. D.. 1.37. 

O, most imperfect light of human reason, 

That mak'st us so unhapi>,\- to foresee 

What we can least prevent. Mai., 208. 

8. rhysiciaus, that cure poisons, still do work 

With, counter-poisons. H'- /'•. 71. 

As aconitum, a strong poison, brings 

A present cure against all .serpents' stings. • A.& l'.. 186. 

9. She 's off o' th' hinges strangely. C. C, 55. 
Bear with him, sir, he 's strangely off o' th' hinges. C. C, 91. 

80 



different a direction from its master's. But Malfi is followed, we 
remember, by the Cure for a Cuckold, just as Northivard Ho by 
Malfi ; the leap in itself is not so great, but it is a greater, perhaps, 
at such years. Who can .say of one so impressionable, or perhaps of 



10. Compare thy form and my eyes together. 
You '11 find my love no such great miracle. 

Compare her beauty and my youth together. 
And you will find the fair effects of love 
No miracle at all. 

11. ere the si^ider 
Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs. 

Or the flatter.v in the epitaphs, which shows 
More sluttish far than all the spiders' webs 
Shall ever grow upon it. 

12. Pray, sir, re-solve me. what religion's best 
For a man to die in ? 

And let him e'en go whither the religion .sends him 
That he died in. 

13. It could never have got a sweeter air to fly in 
Than your breath. 

Kever found prayers, since they convers'd with death. 
A sweeter air to fly in than his breath. 

14. You would look up to heaven, but I think 

The devil, that rules i' th' air, stands in your light. 

The devil that rules i' th' air hangs in their light. 

15. As a dying man's cry : 

I go I know not whither. 

Stay, I do not well know whither I am going. 

16. O. the cursed devil, 
Which doth present us with all other sins 
Thrice candied o'er. 

Thus the devil 
Candies all sins o'er ; 

17. I,ast cry of the villain : 

I do glory yet 
That I can call this act mine own. 

I do glory 
That thou, which stood'st like a huge pyramid, 

18. I have seen children oft eat sweetmeats thus. 
As fearful to devour them too soon. 

19. When I have hew'd her to pieces. 
I '11 have thee hew'd in pieces. 

81 



Mai., 262. 

D. L. C. 37. 
^V. £>., 136. 

B. L. C. 47. 

IV. D., 128. 

D. L. C. 55. 

D. L. C. 14. 

Mon. Col., 262. 

Mai.. 182. 
D. L. C. 117. 

Mai., 267. 
D. L. C, 118. 

IV. D.. 132. 
Mai., 169. 

W. D., 142. 
Mai., 280. 



Mai., 176, and ^. (5- K, 130. 

Mai., 199. 

lb., ISl. 



any Klizabethaii dramatist, where character — native bent — begins, 
and where influence ever ends? What if much that has here been so 
confidently assigned to Dekker, may have sprung from the youthful 
iinitation and self-effacement of Webster? 

20. Sad tales befit my woe : Mai.. 229. 
And, for sad tales suit grief, Moii. Col., 260. 

21. but no otherwise 
Than as .some curious artist takes in sunder 
A clock, or watch, when it is out of frame, 

To bring 't in better order. 3/a/., 227. 

Or, like a dial, broke in wheel or .screw. 

That 's ta'en in pieces to be made go true. AIoji. Col.. 263. 

22. I discern poison 

Under your gilded pills. //'. D.. 62. 

why dost thou wrap thy poison 'd pills 
In gold and sugar? Mai.. 2.S1. 

23. The office of justice is perverted quite, 

When one thief hangs another. Mai., 249, and, verbatim, A. dr' /'., 199. 

24. Did any ceremonial form of law. 

Doom her to not-being ? Mai., 249. 

Therefore in his not-being imitate 

His fair example. A.& I'.. 222. 

Many le-sser repetitiohs, or le.ss verbal ones, as that cited by Ward (III, p. 64), and 
many strikingly identical details like Hamineo, Bo.sola, Julio (in £>. L.C.), Contarino, 
and Ercole, all being students at Padua ( /f '. /)., 27 ; Mai.. 220 ; I). L. C, 35, 37) , might 
be added. Of echoes from the partnership plays in Webster's subsequent work, I 
have found no certain ones. The most probable is the figure of the crystal river 
being to blame for the man who drowns himself in it {W. D., 62) as borrowed from 
Wyalt, 53, 

Then make the silver Thames as black as Styx 
Because it was constrain 'd to bear the barks. 

though the phrasing is so different and the figure may have been a common one. 
Another possible echo is that of the law as a spider's web (IVyall, 54; Mai., 164), 
though the true and exact echo is in Dekker's // This be not a Good Play, p. 287. 
— This utter break between Webster's partnership plays and his independent ones 
appears all the greater when we con.sider that both sets repeat within themselves 
not only sit\iations (as we have seen above) but words and phrases, even the Third 
. Period repeating the .Second. 



82 



CHAPTER III. 
The Revenge Plays. 

We now approach Webster's first independent, and his greatest, 
work, the revenge plays. In this, as we have seen, he breaks with 
Dekker and his manner completely, and there is no link between the 
old and the new. Such a link would have been furnished to hand in 
the IMah'ontent ; but with that he had nothing to do — merely prefixed 
an induction for a revival. 

I. SOURCES AND PLOTS. 

The material of both these revenge plays is drawn, as is the case with 
those of Marston and Tourneur, from Italian life. The source of the 
White Devil ' is some chronicle of the historical Vittoria Accoramboni 
who was murdered at Padua, December 22nd, 1585. Exactly what one 



' The name 'vhite dn<il seems to need explanation, esp. since the New Eng. Did. 
and .Sampson omit it. Haz. in his Bibliog. of Old Eng. Lit. {sub voc.) says, " it was 
a popular name for a wicked woman in Webster's time"; and in his Man. for a 
Collector, " the phrase seems to have grown into use frotn this source as an expres- 
sion for a shrew" (p. 251). He is talking at random. In the Fair Quarrel 
(Middleton, vol. IV, p. 220) the phrase occurs applied to the scoundrelly, hypocritical 
Physician, 

What a white devil have I met withal ! 

and Bullen quotes to explain the phra.se Wb.) a passage from Hall's Downfall of 
Mayganics, ed. 1661, p. 1 : " Lately we were troubled with White Devils, who under 
pretenceof extraordinary sanctity, published open heresy . . . : now we nni madding 
on the other hand, and are like to be troubled with Black Devils, viz., blasphemous 
drunkards, blasphemous health-drinkers, scorners of piety. Sabbath profaners,"etc. 
This meaning would suit al.so a passage in Rezi. Tr. (Ill, 4, p. 394) where Vendice, 
on the Duke's saying (several speeches above) , 

Give me that sin that 's robed in holiness, 
cries. 

Royal villain ! white devil : 

and an entry in the 5. R., April 28, 1613, "a booke called the white divell, or the 
Hypocrite imcased," — a sermon preached by a Thomas Adams. The phrase must 
mean, then, simply hypocrite — need not imply anything of Vittoria's sex, or her 
beauty, or ferocity ; or anything poetic or " mystic," as Mr. Hamilton in his article 
on Malfi in the Sezuanee Rev., IX, 415, opines. 

83 



of thi- i'hic>iuv"U"s ii was, niv ii-si\ni'lics lia\o not put mo in a iH>sition to 
sjiy.' IMioto is a laiA;t> imiuhor oi thorn in various lilirarios ii\ Italy, 
mostly still in mannsoript and of ttnsottlod dato. lUit one - ho iliil use, if 
woiuo ti> jvuljio fiom tho stv^rx Count liiioli has sifto»l from thoso, pretty 
faithfully. The natnos and oharaotors, the inoidonts and ohanijes of 
soot\e, are all those of history, as well as a lot of details sueh as insij;- 
nitioant proper names, nuotatii^ns, and minor oiroumstanees. ' Know- 
im;. howexoi, ni\ material .invl tlat.i to ho so frajiuientary, 1 do not 
think it woith while to attempt an extended investiii^ition of the 
t elation of the Whitt' /\"i/ to itssouive ,»n\ more, th.U is. thai\ is 
n«.vess;xty ti> an undorstattditt>j of the »levelopmont of Webster's art. 

.\s in the play, the seeiie is laid almivst entirely in Rome and Padua, 
uml the .story is of Paolo tiii^rdano thsini. Ihtko of Uraeeiano, * who 
killeil his own wife, and, at the instijj^uion of \ittoria .\(.\\>ramlH^ni, 



* I vi.>iito»> a lUwtf u or uumy v^f the lurst-st lil>n>ncs in lt«l,v. iuchufins all of thivsc 
«t kou>c b\il tho Vrttictui. which was then not !>oecs.<iil>lc. the th»fc at l-'lojYtKtj. and 
tl\vv<tr at Hotv\Kt\a. l'arn»a, Wniiv, l^sufna, ISresoia and Milan, and foxmd nv^tlxinj: that 
of itself v>>ntd t\a\x' servevi Wclviter as .NMni\-e. l?nt sevrrvd of the ina<\usv-ripts at tho 
Casanatrn.xo in RvMno woiy at tl>o tinvo Ih\\o»uI n\,v jx-aoh. in an oxiHVsitivMv ; and the 
oatalo>!\»os tv» tho lil>r5»rios wxtx^ nv di.<v^vvlorl.v a»uf tho iixdioos of M.>v<. sv> inoiMuplefre 
l.v>t"ton nv^t ijivinK titles al^<halH^tioally^, that ot\o n^U havi<>>i n\o»\ths at hi,< disiHxsal 
ixndd make little j>rv'>>irt>.s.s, 

* V^f aoc\^>n>ts eortai«>ly earl.v eno\\>ih to have Ikxmv \i.-i«xl l>.\ Welvsier .\nt. Rioc\>- 
buoni's tl.Ml-l,''^*^'* i«» «>Ar»«. lit*. 1. o»^. t.^. and Cosjiro Camjvuia's »«» /V.".V Historic 
«/»%■ .Votttfo, t,^^, j»i». iri-4. urr t\M< measrf. and tho anonymvnis A" misrf\}f't7< r tt>»t~ 
/«»,v,<#.'««^N«,V oi.«<> tMlii »*y»ie <f/.'." i.'.'itsft I'ssimo .Vnc»»«>»i» l'!!f<'n\: .-Jo'>'»«>»»^>«»t. .«i»«~- 
«Y,v\«» ••.'.7.J ,'tth} >it f\itix>t\>. Urr-sv-ia. I.n^. I have vainl> s^^ns;ht in all tho Hhrarios 
rtfHwr \nontionoif, i«> nuv<t of tho larse lihn^rie.s in ».U-nuan,v, and in tho Urit. Mus. 
Another ohu>niolo. that .sot torth l\v l-V\fori>!Y> iVforici at Milan. ISrO. in tho N!f»r»ti»a 
Mi/jiJ"*.} vH Rijvi>nuM>ti. ontitlovf i"m<«<.j%\j iiW .-iiotttmit iir\' i''>i««»^»«>\>j;.'f.«. mtxy hax-* 
liooi* o<»l,\ enovisjh. is at atiy rate avxxinlins tv> i.5«uili one of tho n\i\st c\>»nj->loto and 
tn>stw\>rtt>y aovvnnts, l>\>t seems Kv<t iiv^w. either tv> lil>n»rios or the Italian .-sooond-hand 
tn»do, — even to the lanie and smnnvsixtly o\->inj'>lete vxilloctivMis of iVfonci's wx'irks «t 
I'arma and Mila«>. whoir he was Ut»r«ria\>, anvf t\-> tl>e ov'illeotion of l»is imuhts iti 
the n\unioi»><»l arehivvs vvf his l>irth»>laoo. Hresv~ia, Wore all the material aceessil'ile', 
tl>err are clews ono«i>:h v.'-'oo l>elo\v. a»ul j>. ."^7. Jiv^te"* Iv^ tix tho ,svn»reo. See l^rof. 

* Snch as; ,<rtj' mj.jmW .».".'.> •»,>■«».•«' •c^vt/tuw. here user! by Is^d^-Ua. U\ /'.. j>. 40, but 
»r<dly by l,vMtvwic\> l>efore bis ,i«d>!r^s. Ut»oH. p. ,\.>0 . pirates, H". />.. p. .v^, Onoli. p. 
t.k»: YitelU. v'.noli, l.V f, .".M. etc.. which WoKstor uses. »". i\, M, as the name of 
Vitt\>ri«"sf*»«ikv,ei\nfnsi«us it i«> menuxry . tx-rf\a»vs. with Cjxi^oIH w, fn^'w'* ; hvwjse of 
vx\»»vortitrs. U \ />.. «v^, «.inoH, 115 v '^ ; tho c\M»cla\x and olectivxn : l"lan»in<\'> as minion 
t\f a c«T\ti««l. T, y>., UC Onoli, A?, x^l." ; CnmiUo in debt tosrsspinj: Monticelsw, 
M\ y>., wV tv<, O.noU. Chaiv H ; Csu»nchi«s at the end. Jl". />., H.' f. and Onoli. XV2: 
s«mmer-ho»>se by Titter. II'. H.. cC. On«.yli, UV. ete,. and in IV K<.\ssofs vx^rsivw of 
Sc»lb>.<t\o tUr«ociano'' and Vlaminia vVittvvria'*. //ist^utrs t'\)ti.i*''rs ii^ n^v^r irmps, 
t.WMis, JcCI : OamiUo, Wetvsters name lor Kroncesco IVretti, vituuias hustvjuui. 
r«vM« his nvothor's name. Canxilla, (.;«»o\i, >*. 

* Welvster st>ells it. of cvuirse, ItrachiiMUV 



kilk'il her liuslwmd. Tli(>n.v>h ViUoriu is not, as VVthsUT (U-sorilK>s 
her, H courtesan, yet in the eyes of the Mediei, the family of Ilraoei- 
atio's niunlered wife, she is a low, unworthy inateh, and in the eyes 
of Cardinal Montall<\ ' sinee heronu- I'ope vSixtnsV,- an aeeotnjiliee 
in llie nnnder of his nephew, her hnshand. .She is tiird and impris- 
oned, l)Ul both she and Hiaeeiano eseape to l'a<lna. ' Ih-dies at SalA 
(^iiot at I'adua), iioisoned, according' to rejiort, thion.nh the inlrij;iu- 
of h'ranei'seo de' Medici, duke of I'lorenee. ' Vittoria llieren])on 
retires to ra<lna ; :nid tline, at thi hands of l,(>do\ie<) ( )isiiii, consin 
of Hr.'UH'iano, and (hi<>n.v;h Ihe maehiualions of llu- Mediei, she and 
her brother, I'Maniineo, aie munU'ii'd. 'i'o (his story Wi-bster h.'is 
added nothini; butOormdia's and Hraeeiano's madness and I'Mamim-o's 
IM'etended madness; I'Mamineo's murder of M.'ireello, his inleiidc-d 
muider of \'iltoiia, and X'ittoria's instigation of the innider of the 
Duehess Isabella; tlu' mon- aeti\i', ])ersonal p;irts of l''i;nu-iseo and 
Giovauui and the new i)arts of /..inehe ami the i^hosts. 

The eh.ai'ai'ti-rs are ma<lr more lixine and human than history 
])ietuii'S tluMU, but :iu' little elianj^eii in t\pe aiul outward feature. 
Vitt*)ria is in history, as in the play, faseinatin.n, ambitious, and eruel ; 
hohl and .artful in i)rison ,'ind undi-r sus]>ieion ' ; but she is a Roman, 
a poetess, .ind, in her last d.iys, sonu-what .niven to exercises of piety." 
Uraceiiino is in history, as in tlu- Jtlav, .i man of lierct- ])assions and 
dark crimes, infatuated with Vittoria. Hut lu' is not iiilerestin.n, as 
Wi'bst(.'r makes him, is uiduMoicallv coipuKiit, and depiudent upon 
his wife's ridatixes foi' moiu'v.' l,odo\ico is in history tin- sanu' li«'r\', 
ui\serupulous soldiei- and bravo; banished Rome for his i-rinu>s, 
eiujiloyed b\ the Xcnetians against the piiates (not turned one him- 
self as Webster has it), and the eaj^er instrumentof the Medici a.n;iinst 
the wotiian he hates. Hut his nu)tive is not, as in Webster, revenue 

' Montiivlso ill Wolisli-r. 

" 111 \Vel)sliT (//'. I)., 9,0, r.iiil l\', ptolmlily tiirulvcrlciitly l)y rcisoii of llic present 
riMKiiiiiK I'i>iH''s IJciuR raiil \'. Itul oinittiiiR llic RVcat Sixliis V from tlic story 
inuues laclc of liistoric sense in W. 

■' Not (liieetly, Caioli. J5,S. 

* (".noli, J^w, ;<()(). 

" r.noli, '1(1. U9, I.VS, .?J.S-(i. el.\ 

" See ill (riioli pilHfriiuiiue to l.oiello, iiitciitioii to en lei a eon vent U>. Mil, losui y . 
enieil'ix, and prayers tlK" last iii>:lil. Of. V, J, " Knter Villoiia with a hoolv in lur 
liaml." " Wliiil i" Are yon at voiir prayers?" \V'el)Ster is lure niieoiiseioiisly 
alTeeteil in clelails hy liis oriMiiial, even tlioituli lie iel)reseiits V'illoria's eliaraeter 
(lilTeniillv . I'lie poetieal eoini)ositioiis are Riven 1).\ <"riioli. It is strntiRe Welisler 
siip|)resse(l this aspeel. — Welister's Vittoria is tlie " faiiions Venetian eoiiilesan " ; 
prol)al)Iy (see l)elow) tliioiiRli eonfnsion vvilli llianea Capello. 

' \V., eiirionsly eiioiiRli, traiisfers llie eorpnteiue and tlie power al sea to I'liin- 
ciseo. ;/■. /)., p. SI. 

85 



for the death of the former duchess of Bracciano, whom he had loved : 
he is related to Bracciano, and revenges the family honor. The 
Cardinal is in history, as in the play, crafty and revengeful. Fran- 
cesco de' Medici, however, kept actually away at Florence ; and his 
sister Isabella, Duchess of Bracciano, by no means an innocent woman, 
was, with the approval of her brother, strangled by her husband 
before he knew Vittoria. ' And it was Marcello, not Flamineo, that 
was Vittoria's bad brother, her pander, and the murderer of her first 
husband ; and Flamineo - himself was the upright one. Yet in the 
main the characters are not changed, only slightly shifted ; and for 
fable and incident Webster depends entireh- upon historical report. 

The character of Webster's Vittoria, however, may have been 
affected, especially as regards nationality, by the story of Bianca 
Capello, * the notorious Venetian, who at this same time * was mistress 
of Bracciano's brother-in-law% Francesco de' Medici. She, too, was 
famous for beauty, wit, and sudden good fortune. Her husband, who 
came with her to Florence, played the part of -s^-ittol somewhat like 
Webster's Camillo ; and her illustrious paramour was thought to have 
killed his wife, the duchess, at her instigation. The two stories might 
easily have been confused ; but it is more likely that Webster pitched 
eagerly upon the bolder features of Bianca's story, — the alien beauty 
coming into Rome and conquering Camillo, Bracciano, Ambassadors, 
and all, and sweeping out of the way not only her own husband but 
her paramour's wife ! 

Was Webster's play known in Italy itself? Count Gnoli thinks it 
referred to by one of the chroniclers, Paolo vSantorio : 

. . . nemo morientium ulilatibus ingeiimit. nemo clenienter intuitus est. Scio 
ego apud quosdam actitatum tragrediK ar.irumeutinn datumque spectantibus in scKna 
haud suppressis personis iiominibusqiie. Hoc anno ex Senatoribus decessere Nico- 
laus Caietanus inter primos Senatores. etc.^ 

As there is no paragraphing done here (or elsewhere) in the manu- 
script, we cannot tell how much of the story just recounted was 
included in the drama ; but as ininiediately before there are recounted 
only the events at Padua, one might fairly suppose it was these alone. 



' Gnoli, 61. 

"^ There is surely a reminiscence of history in W. D., p. 102 : " Some great car- 
dinal to lujf nie by th' ears as his endeared minion." Flamineo was tlie favorite of 
Cardinal Famese. Gnoli, p. 33. 

^ Suggested by Gnoli. p. 469. — See here pp. S5 and 87, not^ 2. 

* There are letters of Vittoria's to Bianca still preserved. .See Gnoli. 

" Vallicellana Ms., K. 6, entitled Antiales cedes. Greg. XIII. Sixt. V. el cet.. tom. 
I, p. 59. 



86 



Even were that not the case, the drama must have been Italian ; for, 
Italy for yet many a day knew nothing of English literature, and little 
enough of England, ^ and the marvel of an English drama an Italian 
would not have so lightly passed over. Nor is it likely that Webster 
imitated the Italian work ; the requirements and conventions of the 
English stage were so different from those of the Continental that 
even to a later day the English dramatists chose rather to draw their 
plots directly from history or romance. Yet it may have attracted his 
attention to the dramatic possibilities of the storj-. - 

The plot of JMalfi was drawn, as has long been known, ^ from the 
twenty-third novel of Painter's Palace of Pleasure, entitled The in- 
fortunate mariage of a Gentleinan, called Antonio Bologna, wyth 
the Diichesse of Malfi, and the pitifull death of them both. To this 
story Webster adds somewhat, but subtracts "nothing. In both, the 
widow Duchess falls in love with the steward of her household, 
Antonio of Bologna ; declares it to him, has, indeed, to thrust it upon 

• Even yet they know little of it : Gnoli, in 1867, says the IV. D. is " sconosciuta 
tra noi," and he himself learns of it '" through a friend " (p. 468). And so .slight 
was the intercourse between Italy and Eng. in Web.'s day that only in the last years 
of Elizabeth, in 1602 (after an inter\'al of forty-four) , did the Venetians send to the 
Court of St. James a secretary (not an ambassador), one Giovanni Scaramelli. At 
this time there seems to have been no other Italian ambassador, to Eng, See Cal- 
endar I'eiiet. State Papers, vols, 1592-1603, 1603-1607. in the exhaustive indices under 
Ambassador. 

° The .son of " Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano,"' (as Webster has it 
on his title-page) was in 1601, as I have just discovered, special ambassador from 
the Grand Duke of Florence to Eng. ! And he evidently found favor there, for in 
1603 the Pope meditated sending him again, as papal ambassador, to congratulate 
James, and refrained only on account of Spain and France. .See State Papers, Venet., 
1592-1603, Art. 982, and 1603-1607, Art. 154, letters of Mocenigo and Badoer to Doge and 
Senate. In the first letter he is called Don Virginio Orsini. and in thesecond, Don 
Virginio Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. Virginio was Paolo Giordano's .son's name 
(see Gnoli, passim), and the fact that Webster changed it to Giovanni (one of the 
few changes of name in the play) , may be indicative of a desire to veil an allusion 
to a living person. Be that as it ma\-, the visit of Virginio to Eng. makes it prob- 
able that the stor>' of his family had become accessible to an Englishman without a 
visit to Italy or a knowledge of Italian. His mission from the Grand Duke would 
explain, perhaps, the contamination of the story with that of Bianca Capello. — But 
all this does not make it more probable — what on the score of his blunders and his 
own nearness to the events has been suggested by Haz. and Sampson (xxx, xxxi) — 
that Web. depended on oral tradition. He has too many precise bits of information 
— sed manet alia mente repostitm, Vitelli. etc., above, p. 84, note 3, for that. That sed 
manet, indeed, which I have never found outside of Gnoli, wo\ild be just the clew. 
Cf, Preface. 

^ There is a special dissertation upon Webster's relation to his source by Dr, 
Kiesow. (See above Bibliog.) My discussion rests upon my own comparison ; but 
I refer the reader to K. for Painter's indebtedness to Belleforest, Belleforest's to 
Bandello, and the various ramifications of the story, including I<ope de Vega. 

87 



him in his scruples and faintheartedness ; and contracts with him, 
with her maid as witness, a clandestine marriage. So they live for 
some time in secret, till several children have been born. This leaks 
out. The thought that the report should reach her brothers, Duke 
Ferdinand and the Cardinal, alarms her, and she has Antonio set out 
to secure a refuge for her at Ancona, whither she, on the pretext of a 
pilgrimage to Loretto, will follow him. There they meet. But her 
brothers have meantime heard of the scandal. They rage, and vow 
revenge ; and the Cardinal has both banished from Ancona. Deserted 
by their train, the Duchess and Antonio think it best to separate. He, 
taking the eldest boy, escapes to Milan ; and she, with the other chil- 
dren, is captured by her brothers' soldiers, and brought back to her 
castle to prison. There she lingers awhile. One da}', she is apprised 
of her doom, and thereupon, in spite of her indignant protestations, 
her pleadings for her maid and children, and the struggles of the 
maid, all of them are strangled. Antonio, meanwhile, sojourns in 
Milan, anxiously cherishing the fond hope of being reconciled to 
his brothers-in-law. But he only falls a prey to their revenge at the 
hands of the mercenary, Bosola. 

What Webster adds to the plot is, roughly speaking, the following : 

1. The brothers' selfish injunctions, shortly upon her becoming a 
widow, against a second marriage. 

2. The entire Castruccio-Julia-Cardinal by-plot. 

3. The entire part of Bosola up to his killing Antonio ; including 
his discovery of the birth of the first child and his report of it, his dis- 
covery from the Duchess herself of the name of her husband and of 
her plans for flight, his torturing of the Duchess, his revenge on her 
brothers, his killing Antonio only by mistake, etc. 

4. The visit of Ferdinand, and his penetrating suddenly to the 
Duchess's chamber. 

5. The prison scenes, and their manifold tortures — the dead hand, 
wax figures, madmen, etc. Only the bare killing of Duchess, chil- 
dren, and waiting-maid is to be found in the original. 

6. The soldier scenes at Rome and Milan. 

7. Practically the whole last act of the play : the loss of Antonio's 
property ; the madness of Ferdinand ; the intrigues and counter- 
intrigues of the Cardinal and Bosola ; Antonio's visit, the Echo scene, 
and his death by mistake ; and the fate of the Cardinal, Ferdinand, 
and Bosola, which is left unmentioned by the novelist. 

Just as Webster adds more to the plot of JMalJi than to that of the 
White Devil, so he does to the characters. Those that he found in the 
original he has drawn somewhat according to hints from the novel. The 
Duchess is daring and spirited, laments her high estate, and is devoted 



to her new husband and her children ; Antonio is gentlemanly and 
high-minded, hesitates to permit the Duchess to descend to his level, 
and at the end lingers about, brooding instead of acting ; and Duke 
Ferdinand and the Cardinal are distinguished after the same scheme 
as Painter's, — the Duke 'transported with choler and driven into 
deadly fur}', the Cardinal grinding his teeth together.' But aside 
from these points and a number of minor borrowings of phrase, cir- 
cumstance, and idea, ^ Webster owes nothing to Painter.^ Especially 
does he do away with the vulgar spirit of the Belleforest-Painter 
account, which (though often sympathetic)* represents the Duchess 
as carried away by her own libidinous passion and uses her fate to 
point a moral . 

As a source, too, in some measure (though a minor one) we must 
henceforth consider Sir Philip Sidne3-'s Arcadia. Mr. Charles Craw- 
ford has recently shown the great indebtedness of ]\Ialfi to this work 
in phrases and sentiments * ; and the indebtedness in incident and 
situation, and in conception of character (as Mr. Crawford too sug- 



' Such as : mention of Gaston de Foix, p. 4 (Painter, vol. Ill), and Mai., p. 160 ; of 
Silvio, p. 39, who appears in Mai. as a character ; of Castruccio as Cardinal of Siena, 
p. 33, the name of whom Web. uses for the cuckold. Also phrases : Mai., p. 176, " I 
will remain the constant sanctuary of your good name," and Painter, p. 20 ; Cariola's 
foreboding, Mai., 218, and the author's observation, p. 27 ; the jest of the executioner as 
he holds the noose to Cariola, Mai., p. 247, " Here "s your wedding ring," and p. 37, 
" and instead of a carcanet placed a rope about her neck." 

'^ Kiesow, pp. 208, 233, thinks Web. follows the act-divisions given by Belleforest 
and Painter, — "hat die schon bei Belle-Painter vorhandene einteilung beniitzt." 
But comparison of the act-divisions in Belle, and Web. has little point. K. himself 
says that Web. has divided acts I and II differently, and I have already shown acts 
IV and V to be almost entirely Web.'s contribution. 

' See Sampson, pp. xxxvi, xxxvii. 

* In Notes and Queries (1904, vSept. 17th to Nov. 12th), Mr. C. points out dozens of 
parallels, or rather borrowings, some of them even to the length of 9 lines, word for 
word (Sept 17th, p. 222, an example) ; and I my.self have collected, without sys- 
tematically seeking them, almost as many more. This is of a piece with his 
borrowing I.,atin mottoes from Dekker (see above, pp. 21-2), with his borrowing of a 

ditty " for Act III, sc. 4 (margin — ' the author disclaims it to be his '). and of 
the many saws and apothegms (many of them marked with quotation marks in the 
old editions) in this play and IV. D. Mr. C. thinks Web. made elaborate notes from 
Sidney : he may have had him, and the others, by heart. If the one be true, he 
pieced his plays together very laboriously ; if the other, he shows much memory, 
little spontaneous invention. Shak., B. & F., etc., did not reproduce exactly. How 
different Shak.'s reminiscences, whether in general or from the Wrcao'/a itself ! 
See Eliza West's Shak. Parallelisms coll. froiu Sidney^ s Arcadia, priv. printed, 1865. 
(Many of these, indeed, are imaginary.) At most, when he has a certain author, 
as Plutarch or Holinshed, before him to dramatize, some fragments of phrase will 
adhere to the subject-matter : there is never accurate, extensive repetition and 
piecing together as in the examples below, pp. 90-1, and in Crawford, passim. 

89 



gests) is not inconsiderable. This appears undoubtedly in the prison 
scenes, and, as I am inclined to think, in the licho scene. ' 

The situation of the Duchess in prison is modelled after that of four 
personages imprisoned in the Arcadia — the Queen Erona, who, like 
the Duchess, had married one of mean birth, and the Princesses Pamela 
and Philoclea and the Amazon Zelmane, who were imprisoned at the 
same time and place. Queen Erona, whom we will consider first, 
bears most likeness to the Duchess, whether in fortune, character, or 
utterances ; 

But Erona sadde in-deede, yet like one rather used, then new fallen to sadness 
(as who had the ioyes of her hart aheadie broken seemed rather to welcome then 
to shunne that ende of niiserie, speaking little, but what she spake was for 
Antiphilus . . . But her witte endeared by her youth, her affliction by her birth, 
and her sadnesse by her beautie, made this noble prince Plaugus ... to perceyue 
the shai>e of louelinesse more perfectly in wo, then in ioyfulnesse ... So borne by 
the hastie tide of short leysure, he did hastily deliuer to.erether his affection, and 
affectionate care. But she (as if he had spoken of a small matter, when he 
mencioned her life, to which she had not leisure to attend) desired him if he loued 
her, to show it, in findiu.y' some way to saue Antiphilus. For her, she found the 
world but a wearisom stase unto her, where she played a part against her will : and 
therefore besought him not to cast his lone in .so unfruitfull a place, as could not 
lone itselfe. O. 1590, I^ib. II, f. 229v.-230. 

And after she learns of Antiphilus' s death : 

glorying in affliction and shunning all comforte, she seemed to haue no delight, 

but in making her.selfe the picture of mi.serie. lyib. II, f. 240 r.^ 

She's sad, as one long us'd to 't, and she seems 

Rather to welcome the end of misery. 

Than shun it ; a behaviour so noble 

.\s gives a majest.v to adversit.v ^ : 

You may discern the shape of loveliness 

More perfect in her tears than in her smiles : 

She will muse for hours together ; and her silence, 

Methinks, expresseth more than if she spake. Mai., p. 230. 

Duck. I account this world a tedious theatre. 

For I do play a part in 't 'gainst my will. 

Bos. Come, be of comfort ; I will save your life. 

Diich. Indeed I have not leisure to tend so small a business. 

Mr. C. infers (Sept. 17th, Oct. 14th) from the greater number of the reminis- 
cences in Mai. and Midi. Co/. (1613) a date c. 1613 for Mai. But dates are not settled 
after that fashion. 

' It is a little difficult to draw the line between what should be held a mere 
quotation and what should be considered here, under the head of source. For 
instance, Julia's pleading for the Cardinal's confidence, Mai., 265, an explicit remi- 
niscence of Philoclea's pleading for Pamela's (Crawford, p. 262), but not similar in 
situation. 

' By an error, there are two leaves numbered 240 ; this is the first, after 231. 

' This sentence from another part of Arcadia, I<ib. I, f. 9r: "A behaviour so 
noble, as gave a maiestie to adversitie." 

90 



Bos. Now, by my life, I pity you. 

Duch. Thou art a fool then , 

To waste thy pity on a thing so wretched 

As cannot pity itself. Mai., p. 234. 

Duch. Whom do I look like now ? 

Car. I,ike to your picture in the gallery, 

A deal of life in show, but none in practice' ; 

Or rather like some reverend monument 

Whose ruins are even pitied. 

Duch. Very proper. Mai.. 238. 

The borrowings are literal, indubitable ; but the more interesting 
thing to us here is that the Duchess, in a like situation, shows the 
same beauty in sadness, the same desperation, the same self-conscious 
glorying in affliction, as Queen Erona. 

In the case of the other three, Webster imitates mainly in the matter 
of their tortures. Their ogress of an aunt, Cecropia, plagues them as 
Ferdinand does his sister, to bring them to despair. Like him she 
would ' ' give them terrors, sometimes with suddaine frightings in the 
night, when the solitary darkness thereof might easier astonish the 
disarmed senses."- And like him she frightened with sham shows of 
horror. Her victims are imprisoned separately, yet so that all, with- 
out seeing each other, might look out into one hall. The curtains of 
these windows are twice suddenly withdrawn : the one time Pamela is 
beheaded, the other, Philoclea's head exposed in a bason.' Even the 
effect wrought is the same as in I\Ialfi. On beholding her sister's 
head Pamela grows desperate, and resolves like the Duchess to starve 
herself * ; and Zelmane tries to brain herself. At this juncture occurs 
the same interesting incident as in Malfi : 

... he ^ heard one stirre in his chamber, by the motion of grarments ; and he with 
an angry voice asked. Who was there ? A poore Gentlewoman (answered the partie) 
that wish long life unto you. And I soone death to you (said he) for the horrible 
curse you haue giuen me. L,ib. Ill, f. 337 r. 

Enter Servant. 

Duch. What are you ? 

Serv. One that wishes you long life. 

Duch. I would thou wert hanged for the horrible curse 

Thou hast given me : Mai., 234. 



' This, again, from another part of Arcadia, L,ib. I, f. 61 r. — " I stood like a well 
wrought image, with .some life in show, but none in practi.se." 

' y4;r., f. 326 V. Cf. .1/a/., IV, 2, p. 236 :" What hideous noise was that ? Car. 'Tis 
the wild consort of madmen," etc. Later on, these madmen come before her. And 
much, if not all, this torturing is done in darkness. 

^ A re, L,ib. Ill, ff. 330 v. -335. Comp. the dead hand given the Duchess, and behind 
a traverse aHiJicial figures of Antonio and his children, appearing as if they were 
dead. Mai., 232. 

* Arc, X,\h. Ill, f. 339 ; Mai., p. 233. 

' That is, Pyrocles, alias Zelmane. disguised as an Amazon. 

91 



Finally, from the Arcadia Webster seems to have taken the notion 
of the Echo scene.* Sidney was no pioneer in this species of dia- 
logne : it appears in Gascoigne's Masque at Kenilworth in 1575, and 
it appears in real drama several times, from Lodge's Wounds of Civil 
War on, before Webster.- With some one or other of these Webster 
very probably was acquainted, but in view of the astonishingly minute 
and literal intimacy with the Arcadia evinced in Malfi — not with 
certain portions but with every book, almost every chapter,' — and, 
further, of the melancholy character of Sidney's Echo, quite unlike 
in this regard Jon son's and the rest, it seems altogether likely that it 
was the Arcadia that suggested the device here. ' 

The relations of the two plays to their sources it is interesting to 
view as a whole. For one thing, in both plays Webster deals with his 
sources after the old-fashioned chronicle-play style ; takes over an 
epic story covering a long period of time quite whole, instead of thor- 
oughly reworking it or weaving two or more together, like Beaumont 
and Fletcher or Massinger."' This, like much else in them, makes 
them old-fashioned. Common to both of them, too, are incoherence 
and lack of motivation. What has the papal election or Lodovico's 
banishment to do with the dramatic movement of the White Devil, 
or what are themotivesof Vittoria's, Flamineo's, or Bosola's villainy? 
The sources of both plays lacking in business and minor incident, 
moreover, Webster contributed of this to both, but far more abun- 
dantly to Malfi, and in less episodic fashion. Page upon page in 
the White Devil, nothing happens, as in the trial scene and the fre- 
quent baiting-scenes ; while to Malfi Webster contributed the intrigues 
of Bosola, the visit of Ferdinand, and the whole action of the com- 



' Arc, I.ib. II, f. 243. 

' Nichols's /'ro^. of Q. Eliz., I^ond., 1823, I, p. 485 (Echo, p. 494) ; IFounds of Civil 
IVar, pub. 1594 (Dods., VII, p. 148) ; Dekker's O/d Fortiinatiis, pub. 1600 (Act I, sc. 1); 
Return from Parnassus, pub. 1606 (Dods., IX, Act. II, sc. 2) : Cynthia^s Revels, I, 1; 
Hog hath lost his Pearl, acted 1613 (Dods., XI, pp. 477-S). 

lyodge's Echo scene is certainly influenced by Sidney's : there may have been 
earlier scenes of the sort in the drama, but the connection here is unmistakable. It 
has seven echoes in common with Sidney's, all but three of the .simpler of which are 
not to be found in any other Echo scene I have noticed, and none of them in Gas- 
coigne. Hence IVounds was not acted in 1587, as Fleay holds (II, p. 49), not before 
1590. 

' As the 4th and 5th books, not contained in the Q., but in the F. of 1593 and 
after. 

* Prof. B. Wendell (Temper of Seventeenth Century, N. Y., 1904, p. 90) says Web. 
is\m\\At\ne Cynthia's Revels. By no means. Web. 's Echo scene resembles almost 
any of the others more than Jonson's. 

' See an account of this so far as B. & F. and >Shak. are concerned in Thorndike'? 
Inf. of B. & F. on Shak. And see below. 

92 



paratively rapid fifth act. Webster has gained somewhat, then, in 
constructive independence and skill. 

Further, in both plays there is a marked tendency to make the 
story more terrible and horrible, to make the guilty more deeply 
guilty and the victims more anguish-stricken, as Vittoria and the 
Duchess. Webster doubles or triples the murders, ^ and all the elabo- 
rate paraphernalia of torture and terror, all the heavy atmosphere of 
gloom and dissolution, are his own addition. And the supernatural 
element — the madness, ghosts, visions, unearthlj'' echoes, conjuring, 
forebodings, and omens — likewise. This is interesting as determin- 
ing with emphasis Webster's adherence to the Kyd-Senecan schooP : 
the two main notes of it — wanton bloodshed and torture, and the 
active part played by the supernatural — he adds on his own account. 
Nay, in the White Devil, the more conservative, old-fashioned revenge 
plav, he even replaces the historical motive — revenge for injured honor 

— with the Senecan one of blood for blood, by making Francisco and 
Lodovico revenge Isabella. 

Lastly, in both plot and characters the two plavs are very similarly 
handled and arranged. Quite ajj&rt from the notable similarity of the 
original stories — revenge at the hands of relatives for offended honor 

— both plays alike contain torture-scenes, unnecessary blood-shed and 
murders, mad-scenes, baiting-scenes, dumb-shows, tales and fables, 
dirges, presentiments and omens, and a scene of supernatural fore- 
shadovidng just before the catastrophe.'' But the main correspond- 
ence between the two is in the characters. These pair off as follows : 
Francisco and the Cardinal, the revengers in the White Devil * — Duke 
Ferdinand and the Cardinal ; Giovanni, the Duchess's son — the young 
Duke, and (as the good person who pronounces the closing speech) 
Delio ; Flamineo as a meditative tool-villain — Bosola ; Lodovico 
as the nobler revenging-villain — Bosola; Zanche — Julia, as the in- 



' Flamineo's murder of Marcello, the murder of an innocent instead of a guilty 
Isabella, the murder of Zanche, in the W. D. ; and in Malfi the useless murder of 
Julia and of the servant (p. 278), not to mention the wholesale killing in the last 
scene (demanded, indeed, by dramatic justice, bvit not furnished in the source) of 
the Cardinal, Ferdinand, and Bosola. 

* See next chapter for these matters. 

' Brachiano's ghost appearing to Flamineo with a skull, and casting dirt upon 
him, and the Echo scene in Mai., V, 3, where Antonio is warned by the Echo, and 
has a vision of the Duchess's face folded in sorrow. 

* A few of these correspondences, of course, are due to the similarity of the original 
stories. Such are those of the two pairs of revengers (both in the original and in the 
W. D., Montalto, having become in the meantime pope, really does not wreak 
revenge) , and of Giovanni and the Duchess's Son ; but of none of the others mentioned 
above. 

93 



triguing women who betraj' secrets and bring about the catastrophe 
at the end ; Antonelli and Gasparo — Grisolan and Roderigo, as char- 
acterless " stage-furniture "; Camillo — Castruccio, as ass and cuckold. 
And the repetitions of figure and phrase are, as we have already 
seen, as marked.^ 

II. A SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE REVENGE 

TYPE. 

To whom does Webster owe the type of revenge play he here 
handles, and what does he himself contribute to the development 
of it? 

About 1590 -' there arose on the London stage, not soon to leave 
it, two species of the Tragedy of Blood, one created b\- Marlowe and 
the other by Thomas Kyd. To the one class belong the Jew of 
Malta, the 3/assacre of Paris, Titus Andronicus,^ Dekker's Lust's 
£>0}niti ion,* and Chapman's late dramas, Alphonsus and Revenge 
for Honour'' ; to the other, Kyd' s ^a«/jA Tragedy and Hamlet,^ 
Marston's Antonio's Revenge, Chettle's Hoffman, Chapman's Re- 
venge of Bussy D' Ambois, Tourneur's Revenger' s Tragedy, and 



' See, above, note at end of Chap. II. 

' The date of the Spanish Tragedy is very probably before 1589, because of Nash's 
allusions to it in that year. See Boas's Kyd, pp. xxviii, xxix. The Jeru of Malta, 
reg. May 17, 1594, certainly is, as Fleay suggests, subsequent to Dec. 23, 1588, because 
of the mention of the Gui.se's death in the prologue. This last applies also to the 
Massacre at Paris, only it must be still later. The earliest entry for it in Henslowe 
is Jan. 30, 1593, and that ior Malta is Feb. 26, 1591. See Fleay, II, 61, 63 : Henslowe, 
pp. 13, 15. It is probable that Kyd's play antedates both of Marlowe's. See Thorn- 
dike's review of Boas's Kyd, Mod. Lans- Notes, 1902. Bang {Eng. Stud.. Bd. 28, p. 
229 f) upholds a date 1589-90. 

^ " the 23 of Jenewary 1593 " [i. e.. 1594]. Henslowe, p. 16. 

■* Published 1657, but very certainly to be identified with the Spanish Moor's 
Tragedy of Henslowe, Feb. 13, 1599 [i. e.. 1600]. See Fleay, I, 272 ; Henslowe, p. 118; 
and below. Chap. IV, Sect. I, in conn, with D. L. C. 

° Both in 1654, but, of course, much earlier than that. For date of Rei\ Hon. see 
App. II. 

" I take for granted without any discussion what, as most critics agree, has been 
proved beyond a doubt, that Kyd was the author of the Old Hamlet, and probably 
by 1588. See the argument, and summary of former argument, in Boas's Kyd, 
Introd., Sec. IV. But the question of the atithorship of the Old Hamlet is not 
essential to my discussion ; I am dealing with the Kydian type of revenge play, and 
to that, Hamlet , even in its 1623 form, as has long been recognized, im questionably 
belongs. — See on this, and on the whole svibject so far as Hamlet is concerned, the 
excellent essay of Mr. A. H. Thomdike on the Relations of Hamlet to Elizabethan 
Revenge Plays, in which he discusses Sp. Trag., Ant. Rev., Ath. Trag., and 
Hoffman, as well as the first parts of Ant. Rev. {Antonio and Mellida) and of Sp. 
Trag. Ueronimo) , which, as being onXyfrst parts and not revenge plays, I consider 
but slightly. Where I am indebted to him I shall try to indicate in the footnotes, 

94 



Atheist's Tragedy, the Second Maiden's Tragedy, and Webster's 
White Devil and Duchess of Malfi. The two species had, indeed, 
something in common ; and in the process of development some- 
times influenced each other. ' Both were full of revenge, intrigue 
and childish stratagems, rant, blood, melo-dramatic devices and 
setting. Yet they keep remarkably distinct. 

The Kydian Tragedy of Blood. 
The Kydian - Tragedy of Blood is distinguished above all by its 
Senecan character. Before Kyd's time, indeed, Seneca had influenced 
the English drama in many direct and indirect ways : it was he who 
stood sponsor for those firstlings of Elizabethan tragic genius, Gorbo- 
duc, Tancred and Gisniunda, and the Misfortunes of Arthur. But Kyd 
came into contact with him directly and anew, and Kyd was the first 
to put genius into his imitation — to take and to give generoiisly. 
From Seneca he took the motive and convention of revenge, ^ — 
revenge not of the merely personal and voluntary sort such as in the 
few of Malta or LusV s Dominion, but as a sacred duty, for murder of 
a relative or corruption of a wife or mother, revenge, too, inherited, 
and associated with supernatural incentives and sympathies.* The 
revenge of Atreus and the revenge, of ^gisthus are altogether 



though it is sometimes difficult to show where I begin and he leaves off. Naturally, 
my purpose is different from his, — to distinguish the two types, Senecan and 
MarlowesQue, and to show the relation and contribution of Webster to the one. 

' As in Hoffman and Titus Andronicns. See below. 

^ It is necessary to coin the word ; it is no worse than Keatsian. 

^ As in the Thyestes, where Atreus revenges himself for his wife's di,shonor, and 
where the word and notion revenge is harped on almost as much as in Kyd or 
Marston. The convention of revenge as a moral obligation, in a sense in which it is 
not used in Marlowe's plays (though here a convention, too, appears, in the phrase. 
" sweet revenge "), appears also in Seneca, but not in so intense a form. E. £.. 1. 176, 

Ignave, iners, enervis et (quod maximum 
probrura tyranno rebus in summis reor) 
inulte, post tot scelera, post fratris dolos, 
fa.sque omne ruptum, questibus vanis agis 
iratus Atreus? 

— In this brief discussion I must use the word Seneca or Senecan somewhat 
loo.sely, without stopping to inquire at each point whether the influence be derived 
from him direct, or through English, or French, or Italian, channels. That Kyd 
did draw from Seneca directly is not to be doubted. (See list of quotations in 
CunlifFe, Iitfl. of Sen., p. 127.) Here, however, I am concerned only with the differ- 
entiation of the Kydian type from the Marlowesque. 

" See the Furia in Thyestes, and Thyestis Umbra and Tan tali Umbra in the 
prologues of the Thyestes and AgatKemtioti , and compare the portents at the killing 
of the children in Thyestes. Cf. ghosts arising from L,imbo in Sp. Trag. and 
Ham., and the Fury Revenge in the former. 

95 



different from the revenge for indignities and contempt, blent with 
ambition and wanton murderousness, which characterizes Barabas, 
Aaron, Eleazar, and Abrahen,' and is very like that of Marston's 
Antonio, Tourneur's Vendice, or Webster's Francisco. He took, too, 
the revengeful ghosts, the presentiments, - the fatalism, something of 
the Stoic philosophy and of the Stoic demeanor ^ of heroes before 
pain and death, meditations on Fate, Fortune,* Justice, etc., physical 
horrors on the stage, ■' and many tricks of the tumid Senecan st3'le, ® 
— all of which but the last two are lacking in the Mario wesque variety. 
To this Kyd added much else, some of which is handed down even 
to Webster : — madness such as Hieronimo's or feigned madness such 
as Hamlet's, an idyllic love-story such as that of Belimperia and Hora- 
tio and of Hamlet and Ophelia, an incestuous relation ' such as that of 
Claudius and Gertrude, and various stratagems and intrigues to bring 
about the ends of villain and revenger, ' the most characteristic and 
effective of which is the play within a play, ' found in both the Spa}iJsh 
Tragedy and Hamlet. He created (or borrowed) a princely villain of 
decidedly Machiavellian stamp, and a hireling tool-villain whom the 
master despatches betimes by a trick. ' He pushed the revenge motive 
to further extremes, so as not merely to reach to the victim's kin but 
even to his soul in the other world . And he set this round about with 
more than Senecan sound and fury, with curses, lamentations, and 
dirges, with a melodramatic environment of night, with mutilation 



' The Machiavellian villain, or hero, of Chapman's Rev. Hon.; Eleazar in L. D. 

* Presentiments are frequent in Seneca. See Cunliffe, p. 77 ; Sp. Tr., II, 4, 6 (7, 15, 
46), and the presentiments in Hamlet. 

' S^e Hieronimo's indifference at the end and Isabella's boldness. See III, 1, 
32-34, for philosophy. 

* Sp. Tras., Ill, 1, first speech, etc. ; Seneca's choruses. 

^ Such as the slaying of Thyestes's children and serving up their limbs, repro- 
duced in Marston's Ajit. Rev. But Seneca outstrips even him : Thyestes unwittingly 
eats. And he and Atreus harp on it : si natos pater humare et igni tradere extremo 
volo, ego sum cremandus. Thyestes, 1090-2, etc.^This incident in Tit. And. 

* Such as a series of rhetorical questions, Thyestes, 1-12 ; aphorisms and sen- 
tentious expressions, Thyestes, 86 f, 207 f, 295; antitheses, Thyestes, 200 f, 1030; 
anaphora and epiphora, Thyestes, 290-3; noisy apostrophes, 623 f; and addressing 
one's self by one's own name or as " heart " or " soul," Thyestes, 180, 270, 283, 423. Cf. 
Sp. Tr.. II, 2, 19-23 ; III, 2, 37, etc. Stichomytheia, Thyestes, 303, 310, etc., Sp. Tr., I, 
2, 155 f ; 3, 43 f, etc. Some of these tricks had been transplanted into Eng. tragic 
style from Seneca previously; some of them, but sparingly, adopted also by 
Marlowe. For passages borrowed from Seneca, see, further, Cunliffe, and Boas's 
Kyd, index sub Seneca. 

" This latter to be found, of course, in .Seneca. 

" I<orenzo and the comic tool-villain Pedringano. Cf. the play Jeronimo, in which 
Ivorenzo holds the distinguished I^azzarotto in fee, I, 1, 114 f, and I, 3. — Whether 
this play too is Kyd's, or is a foolish imitation of him, is a debated question. .See 
Boas's Introd., Sect. III. 

96 



and murder, with properties like ropes, daggers, gallowses, and even 
trees for hanging. 

But the most signal innovation of Kyd is his taking of the ghost 
out of the induction where he had hitherto stood, ^ and making him, 
instead of an environing influence, one of the dramatis personae, nay, 
the inciting force, the heart and soul, of the drama. This he first 
accomplished with the ghost in Hamlet, — that ghost which "cried so 
miserally at the Theator like an oister-wife," according to Lodge's 
report in 1596, "Hamlet, revenge," and so must have been, even in 
Kyd's version, promoted above a prologue,^ — and it, not the old- 
fashioned, more Senecan Spanish Tragedy, served as the model for 
all the ensuing plays of the Kydian tradition. The ghost, then, is 
always an actor, and thereby the convention of revenge as duty 
is made visible, personal, theatrically forcible. This introduction of 
a direct mandate from the other world probably only accentuated a 
feature already noticeable in the Spanish Tragedy — the unmotived 
delay in executing the project of revenge. This feature, due, very 
likely to a great paucity of incident and intrigue in the sources ^ Kyd 
drew from, to Kyd's own inability to construct of himself a consecu- 
tive intrigue tending to the execution of the project, and his inclination 
to "bombast out" a tragedy with introspective, declamatory mood- 
scenes such as he could imitate from Seneca, was too great a blemish 
to stand before the eye of Shakspere. By him the delay was grounded 
in Hamlet's indecision of character.'* But this stroke was not further 
developed or imitated ■'' ; the Kydian plaj'-wrights were after more 

' Both in .Seneca (for, whether called so or not, the first speeches of Furia and 
Tantali Umbra in Thyestes, and the introductory speech of Thyestis Umbra in 
Agamemnon, are equivalent to prologues) and in such early Eng. .Senecan work as 
the Mis/oriunes of A ri/tur and the .S>. T';-. — This improvement in structure (which 
must have been present in Old Hamlet , as well as in the .Shaksperean, as is proved 
by its presence in the Beslrafte Biudermord, the Ger. version of Old Hamlet) is 
interesting comfinnation of other evidence pointing to a later date for it than that 
of the Sp. Tr. The earlier play would natvirally be that with less innovations, the 
more Senecan. And Old Hamlet " must date before Aug. 23, 1589, when Greene's 
Menaphon was reg. Nash's prefatory epistle contains a reference to ' whole 
Hamlets.' (Thorn., p. 129.) Bang, Eng. St., 28, pp. 229-234, sets Sp. Tr. after Mena- 
phon and Ham. 

^ In Wits Miserie. Quoted in Boas, p. xlvii. .Shak.'s version, of course, was not in 
existence at this time. 

^ The .source of the Sp. Tr. is unknown ; but every one knows how little intrigue 
and incident there was to take in Saxo Grammaticus's or Belleforest's version of the 
story of Hamlet. 

* Boas calls attention to this. 

^ This is one reason (taken with the evidence of the Sp. Tr.) why we must think 
Kyd could not have anticipated Shak. in motivating Hamlet's delay. It is Kyd's 
Hamlet, as we shall see, not .Shak.'s, that influenced further development. 

97 



tangible, telling things than ps5^chology ; and even Hieronimo's 
hesitation, his hectoring himself for his remissness, and his search 
for further proof fail to appear again. After Hamlet, the revenger 
•delays, indeed, 3'et only as one biding his time, like Antonio, or 
bustling about on other business, like Vendice. 

Of all this there is, of course, nothing in the Marlowesque plays. 
In them the revenge is, as we have seen, not an obligatory, social, or 
sacred matter, but a matter of personal resentment and retaliation, 
and is altogether subordinate to ambition, lust, and wanton murder- 
ousness, as in Barabas, or Eleazar, or Alphonsus. Nor are there 
supernatural elements — ghosts, portents, omens, or presentiments, 
■ — Senecan fatalism, or Stoic philosophy. Instead of the solemn, 
half-mad, shrinking Revenger, who strikes only at the end, there 
is a burly Machiavellian villain for hero, an atheist, murderer, and 
poisoner hy principle, ^ who has not one but manj^ revenges, and 
brushes awaA- human beings like flies. His energy and self-confi- 
dence take the place of fatalism ; and schemes of fraud and violence, 
poison and murder — the Machiavellian program — that of reflections 
on fortune, sacred dut}', suicide, and the Stoic philosoph}^ True, 
there are instances in the Marlowesque drama of a more Senecan 
spirit of revenge, as in the Alphonsus, in which a minor villain- is 
seeking revenge for his father, and in Titus Andronicus, which, 
though swaj-ed mainly by the spirit of Marlowe, had come also into 
direct contact with both Seneca and Kj'd.^ On the whole, however, 
the types keep surprisingly apart. 

Marston. 
Tlie Old Hamlet is the model of the succeeding plays, and of 
none so markedly as Marston's Antonio'' s Revenge.'^ This absorbs 
nearly everything at hand in the Spanish Tragedy as well ; but its 



' See below, and Dr. Meyer's Machiavelli. 

" Alexander. 

^ The character of Aaron is at numberless points — such as professional \'illainy, 
blasphemy, paganism (or rather pure devilishness) , cursing at death, lust, ambition, 
and racial resentment and antipathies, — at one with Barabas and Eleazar ; and 
there are frequent echoes and imitations of Marlowe's style and rhythm. But the 
counter-play shows decided evidences of the influence of Kyd (see Boas, in trod., Ixxix, 
Ixxx) . It lacks, indeed, almost all supernatural features ; but the Thyestean banquet 
is, of course, Senecan, and there is revenge for a murdered son, madness and crafty 
madness, appeals to Heaven, and strongly objective presentiments (II, 3, 195 & 211), 
Ivatin quotations from Seneca (Cunliffe, p. 128). In short, T. ^. is a cross betwixt 
the two. 

■* Date 1600. See pp. 99, 100, note. Consequently anterior to Shak.'s Hatn.. which 
internal e\'idence, here given, confirms. Cf. Thorndike. 

98 



model is the Old Hamlet. There is a main revenger, Antonio, who, 
like Hamlet, revenges his father's death, is, like Hamlet, a " gentle 
boy," a meditator, and, like Hieronimo and Hamlet, a scholar ^ ; and 
an ancillary one, Pandulpho, who, like Hieronimo, revenges his son's 
death ; and a revenger's mother, the Duchess, who is sought in mar- 
riage b}" the murderer, and who joins her son in revenge, like the 
Queen in Old Hamlet - ; and a maiden, Mellida, imprisoned, like Bel- 
imperia, for her love of the "gentle bo}^" to keep her silent. And 
there is a ghost as mainspring of the action. This is the father, not, as 
in the Spanish Tragedy^ the friend, of the lover ; he cries, like Ham- 
let's father, "remember me,"'* and, as in Old Hamlet, " revenge "*; 
and appears at night to him alone, and in his mother's chamber to 
them both to rebuke her. He himself is bloodthirsty, and (after 
the deed) exultant, ' like the ghost of Andrea in the Spanish Tragedy, 
and (ver\' certainly) that in Old Hainlet ; and though his son does 
not expressl}' avow a yearning to kill both body and soul, j'et, like 
Hieronimo, he stretches his revenge even to the innocent and friendly 
members of the murderer's famih-." Here, too, are to be found 
a villain, Piero, still more deeply dyed in Machiavellism, and his 
tool-villain, Strotzo, of whom Piero, like Lorenzo, rids himself by a 
merry trick ; real madness in Pandulfo, on and off again as suddenly 
as a convulsive fit, like Hieronimo's, " and pretended madness in 



' Thorn, notices the last points. As to the phrase, " gentle boy " — really a rough 
characterization, I think, of the type of sensitive, reflective, high-minded youth in 
love with a maiden and devoted to his father, whom Marston in Antonio, and Kyd in 
Horatio and his Hamlet, try to represent, — it is to be found in Ant. Rev., Ill, 1, 36, 
and Sp. Tr., Ill, 13, 138, addressed by their fathers to Antonio and Horatio. It prob- 
ably stood in the g'host's speech in Old Ham. (l,ike the " Antonio [Hamlet] re- 
venge ! " and '" remember me.") 

^ Like Belimperia, too, in Sp. Trag., and I<ucibella in Hoff. — This passage is actu- 
ally in Ham.. Q. I (as Thorndike points out), in the latter, less changed part, III, 4, 
pp. 46-7. 

^ Andrugio says, indeed. " remember /Am " (.Ant. Rev.,\\\,\.'iQ'). Itcomesatthe 
end of the speech and line, as in Ham., Q. I and II and F. I. 

* " Antonio, revenge," ^w/. Rev., Ill, 1, 34, which corresponds exactly to the oister- 
wife cry of the ghost cited above, and is lacking in both Qq. and the F. of Ham. 

° Andrea, Sp. Tr., IV, 5. 12 and 30 f; A tit. Rev., V, 1, dumb-show and speech, and sc. 
2,53,54. 

" In killing innocent little Julio, as Hieronimo in killing the father of lyoreuzo at 
the end. 

' Ant. Rev.,\, 2, 263 f, and recovers completely, 312 to end. This, when we con- 
sider the remarkable literalness of Marston's imitation, especially in phrases and 
devices (as above, and in the " dirge to be said, not sung," below), is rather strong 
evidence that the corresponding madness of Hieronimo, Sp. Tr., II, 5, 45-(99), (an 
addition of the 1602 Q., which contains according to its title-page " additions ") , stood 
in that text when Marston set to work. This last must have been not later than 1600, for 

99 

l.rfC. 



Antonio ' for intrigue's sake, like Hieronimo's and Hamlet's ; and 
instead of the stratagem of a play within a play, or the final duel, a 
masque (already used for other purposes in the Spanish Tragedy), 
this also not without surprises and treachery. - 

So saturated is Marston with his master's melodramatic art that not 
the slightest trick of it escapes him ; — not the running upon the 
stage, '■'■ the conspirators digging with daggers, * the hanging up of the 
body, cries from the cellarage, stuttering,^ the dirge which " nmst be 
said not sung,'"' the revenger appearing in black, book in hand, to 
meditate, and falling down in the midst of his meditation "; not the 
presentiments, dreams, and night-scenes, apostrophes to Heaven and 
to Nature,' I^atin and even Italian for curses, dark threats, or moments 



both Parts of Antonio and Mellida were registered Oct. 24, 1601, and both Parts must 
have been done some time before that, for the style of i\\e Malcontent (which belongs 
to 1600, see above) is a great change and advance. —The evident connection between 
A.& M. (date 1599, see V, 1, 8, " Anno Domini 1599 "), V, 1, the Painter episode, and 
the " Painter's part," Sp. Tr., III. 12 A, points the same way; for I cannot think 
with Small {Stage Quarrel) and Thorndike that this absurd parody precedes that 
highly tragic scene ; least of all, if a man like Ben Jonson wrote it. L,ikewise, 
Jonson's reference io Jeronimo in Induction io Cynthia's Revels (reg. May 23, 1601) 
"as 'twas first acted." For this date of registration makes it probable that the 
Sp. Tr. had been changed, and by himself, some considerable time before those 
records of payment to him in Henslowe — the main basis hitherto for the late date 
ofthe additions — .Sept. 25, 1601, and Jmie22, 1602 (Henslowe, pp. 149. 16S). I therefore 
would suggest that the language of the title-pages of the enlarged editions (in Boas's 
Kyd, introd., pp. Ixxxv-vi, all are given) — " and enlarged with new additions of the 
Painter's part, and others " — may fairly be interpreted to mean new additions to 
the Painter's parts, not such as Marston here parodies. Be that as it may, Marston 
must, I think, be parodying, and B. J. cannot, in all seriousness, be echoing his 
enemy's balderdash. 

' Antonio's pretended madness is really disguise as a fool. But he, too, as Thorn, 
remarks, is driven by his meditations and the appearance of the ghost to the verge 
of real madness, like Hieronimo, and like Hamlet even in the Shaksperean version 
— the " wild and whirling words." 

* Act V, sc. 2. Comp. Hieronimo's treachery. Sp. Tr., IV, 4, in his entertainment. 
= /. (?., for no reason, unlike Alberto's, IV, 1. Cf. Pandulfo's running, V, 1, with 

Hieronimo's Sp. Tr., Ill, 13, and IV, 4, where there is reason for it in Hieronimo's 
madness. Another instance of Marston's undiscriminating effort after boisterous- 
ness. — Thorn, notes some of these details. 

* Sp. Tr., Ill, 12, 71 ; Ant. Rev.. IV, 2, 87, stage-dir. 

" From the first part — Jeronirno. Whether the play be Kyd's or not we need not 
here concern ourselves : it is sufficient that it was connected always with the Sp. Tr. 
Piero's stuttering, A. <2f M., Ill, 2, p. 57. 

« Sp. Tr., II, 5, 66 f, and Ant. Rev., IV, 2, 88-96. 

' Thorn.— 5/>. Tr., Ill, 13; 1,3; Ant. Rev., II ; 2. IV, 2. 

' There is constant mention of sky. sun, and [night, and {heir changes, and now 
and then addresses to them, in Mars, and Tour. Of appeals in Ant. Rev. (except to 
" heaven," " heavens "). such as on pp. 104, 134, 156. For the religious element in 
Ant. Rev., see ref. below, p. 103. 

100 



too violent for English,' the revenger's cry Vindida,'^ and frequent 
references to "tragech-."^ And his language, though far more bom- 
bastic and boisterous, more archaistic and sophisticated, constantly 
echoes (however it may have been with the lost Hatnlet) at least the 
Spanish Tragedy; shows the same rhetorical figures in exaggerated 
form — anaphoras, epiphoras, prodigious antistrophes,* and passion- 
ate apostrophes,' — as well as a considerable number" of borrowed 
phrases. ' 

For all that, Marston made several contributions to the development 
of the type, some of which continue down to Webster. He greatly 
enlivened the dialogue ; he kept the meditative soliloquy of Kyd, but 
cut down long speeches and mere mood-scenes ; and he decidedly 
increased the stage business. He lifted the villain into a more im- 
portant role, — a Machiavellian with a program of ambitious schemes, ' 
active consecutively in a wa\' that Lorenzo, whose activity after the 
crime is made up of isolated efforts to escape detection and punish- 

* Hieronirao's I^tin dirge ; Antonio's speech on recovering- utterance after the 
ghost's appearance (III, 1), last lines of his address to ghost and of ghost's speech, 
and Ant.'s thanks to Heaven on feeling Julio's little limbs in his clutch (11. 148-9). 
Italian : Sp. Tr., pp. 4,S, 80 ; A.& M., 59, 61. 

=■ Thorn. — 5A Tr., Ill, 13, 1 ; Ant. Rev.. V, 1, 57. 

' This is frequent in revenge plays after Kyd : Sp. Tr., pp. 7, 53, 99 (not counting 
the use of the word in the play within the play) . Ant. Rev., pp. 120, 140, 174 : Tour., 
see below. 

* Anaphoras and epiphoras are to be found in other dramatists of the time — Chap- 
man and Marlowe — but an tistrophe is very rare. The most astounding is Piero's, 
A. <2f M.. Ill, 2, 272-3. Cf. Sp. Tr., I, 4, 35-7, etc. 

* Passim in Sp. Tr. in soliloquies, as III, 7, 45. See below, under Toumeur. 

* Lines and situations such as : Sp. Tr.. I, 1, 91— Ant. Rev.. I, 2, 301 ; Sp. Tr.. IV, 1. 
159-60 — Ant. Rev., II, 2, 220; etc. See notes to Bullen's ^«/. Rev. 

' I have insisted above upon the Old /fani.'s being the main model of the .succeed- 
ing revenge plays, and have shown it to be the case in the main matters of structure. 
And though I find no e\-idence of any reminiscence of Shaksperean language or of, 
possibly, Shaksperean incident (just as the dates would lead us to expect), there are 
the following striking minor reminiscences (besides those adduced above, and the 
many adduced by Thorn., pp. 155-168) of the Hamlet story, and of the Old //am. 
language as quoted b>- Dekker and Web. For brevity I cite merely the page 
numbers in BuUen's A/arston: 

1. Dekker and Web. in /F. //., p. 159, " Let these husbands play mad Hamlet, and 
crj' revenge." Ham. himself does not cry that in Shak. Antonio does (pp. 179, 181) , 
twice over in L,atin — Vindicta .' 

2. P. 146. Antonio's vow, like Hamlet's, esp. in the line " if my brain Digest a 
thought but of dire vengeance," Cf. //am., I, 5, 98-105 (in Q. I). 

3. Maria enters, announces and describes the death of Mellida, just as the Queen 
does in both Q.'s of //am. (Thorn.) —In this she reports Mellida as saying (p. 170), 
" the world is too subtle for honest creatures. " Cf. Ophelias " tricks in the world," 
//am., IV, 5, 4, 5. 

* Enounced several times: Ant. Rev., IV, 1, 260-S, etc. 

101 



iiKMit, was not.' As a conswiuence, his play is not so slow as the 
S/>a>iis/i Tniiifih', thou.u-h its arcclcnitioii is due, not to the reven jeer's, 
but to the villain's intrij^ui'. IK- jidcU'd, further, the important device 
of disfjfuisc (not merely in (lie nius(|ue) for the revenger's safety; 
and (an addition of still more important eonsicpu lu-es) the torture- 
scene, with its mutilation, its tauntinj,; an<l triumphing of the revenger 
over the villain, uliii-li apjwars in llu' Sf^iUiis/i '/^rajiedy o\\\\ m the 
germ.' He greatly developed tlu- melodnimatic setting — night- 
scenes as ajjpropriate to horrors, ' api)eals to Nature and represen- 
tations of her as .sympathetic with tragic events'; — increased and 
varied the horrors of bloodshed and mutilation generally '; and added 
to the ]>resenlinu'nts cpiite objective omens and portents.'' .\nd he 
introduced a new moral element. The stereotyped and i-olorless 
brooding and I.imeiil.itidii ol Kyd on fate and fortinii', deatli and the 
course of tliis world, gi\<,' way tosatiri'. This is not altogetluT " fiee " 
(louse a miui'ialogii-al ligure), but generally takes dramatic form : 
on the DUi' h:in<l, llu-re is a special mouth-piece ])rovi(led for critici.sm 
and i-ensurc, wliicli we for convenience niav call the malcontent," and 



" Hill t lie stiatiiKinisiir I'icroaiv liltk' lisscliildisli and traiisi>arciit than I.oicn/.o's. 
Cf. his iiinnicv ul' I'l'lichc- anil .\nilrnKin, or his iniprisouincnt of Mcllida and his 
prfpostcronsivport of it, or his fatal ji-sl with Strotzo, with I/ircnzo'sway of Ri-ttiiiK 
truth out of IVdrinnaiio, his l)t'atinv. him in hand while in jail and on the soalToUi, 
his iniinisoninw Ileliinpciia so that slu- Mia\ nci( tell, am! his " shooinn " IliiToiiimo 
awa\ Ironi eonit. 

'■' 'riir last srenr, w hrn- llic niasUcis miililair and laniit Ticio, pniniplrd lpiiil)al)ly 
by SciU'ca also, .Sec 'I'livr.s/rs. KL'ii to end, the tanntiiiysnt' .Atrons. 'I'hat Maistoii 
had Tliy'stcs hefijrc him in this pla.\ is iiroved by Pie-ro's b.-iiuMK-t and by pvolontifd 
«inotiitions such as HI, 1, l(i6 f. — .S'/>. Tr., last ,sccik-, wlu-ro llicvotiinio, after ho is 
cauk'ht, is threatened with torture. In botli ca.ses the tonvine is cut out. Hut that in 
.V/>. '/";•, is really not a tortnre-scene, for Ilieroninio, tlioiiRli cauKht, is still the only 
one who is active — liiles out his own toiimie and kills the Dnkc by craft. 

' Sec Ant. A'r?'.. Ill, 1 , thiouKliont for Marston's n.se of nijilit for its inelodraniatic 
fitness, esp. 1. 1 f, ISI f; I, l,.^-7; IV, 2. 107 f. — To III. 1. 184 f, above, there is a strik- 
ing iiarallel in drift, situation, and wording in Ham., Ill, 2, 40.'!. This last is not, 
indeed, in Q. I, but it must have been in the Old Ham.: it is .so much in llu' style of 
the Kydian melodrama that it could hardly have been .Shak.'s addition. 

* Aiit. Km., I, 2, \S^\ I.J, llSf; 1, 1, V>-1\. These descriptions of aiid addresses 
to Nature almost supersede such passionate appeals to Natiiie as llieiMiiiuio's, 
,St>. T>.. 11. .-i, 26-7. 

" Murder of Julio, exhibition of I'Vliche's corpse ami of Julio's limbs. 

" .And the objective omens and portents, which Iroiu now on are peculiar to Kydian 
trnKcdy (unless, like those in Jul. drs., or in A/at\ I the horses, the falcon, and the 
owl], contnincd in the .source), are inspired, at least the i>ortents, b.\ -Seneca. 
Thyes/fs, 77(\fT, ''S,S f. See .(«/. Rn<., I, 2, theominous dream, comet, bla/in« heaven, 
and the no.se-bjeed. .SeeChettle, Chapman's, and 'I'oitr.'s pat thunder and liwhtuinjf. 

' l''eliche in .(. O''' /U., Malevole in Afa/c. (.see as to the A/a/i\ beinv; in the rexeiiKC 
tradition, p. 1 10, note (>). 

102 



on the other, there are subjects furnished him on the boards. The 
malcontent plays with and rails at the various forms of affectation and 
rascality about him, or these themselves evoke, or imply, satire through 
their extravagant, ridiculous deportment. ' But the malcontent goes 
further : he rails at parasites and flatterers, whoremongers and intelli- 
gencers, at courts, at great men and princes whether they be on the 
stage or off, and at mankind as a whole. He takes on even a prophetic ' 
cast — in keeping with that cosmical, religious point of view- which 
prevails here as in Kyd, Seneca, and the type generally, — presumes 
to speak to God and even for him, and from "the height of con- 
templation ' ' contemns, and (as he terms it) pities, the ' ' feeble joints 
men totter on." '' This last, rather declamatory, element, to be found 
in Antonio and Mellida, gives place in Antonio's Revenge (through 
the death of the malcontent, F'eliche) to Antonio's conversational and 
more dramatic meditations, which are of an ironic, bitter, but no 
longer quite prophetic cast '; but it reappears in Malevole. 

CHKTTI.K AND Chapman. 
The further development of the type proceeds from Marston 
directly, through Tourneur and the Second Maiden's Tragedy, to 
Webster. Yet two other off-shoots'' from Kyd himself — Chettle's 
Hoffman and Chapman's Revenge of Bussy — demand a word. 
Hoffman, composed probably a little later " than Antonio's Revenge, 
is, like it, inspired by both the Spanish Tragedy and the Old Hamlet, 
mainly by the latter. The story itself is Danish, and is of a son who 
revenges his father's death. Lodowick, like Horatio, is slain by the 

' IJalnrdo, Korohosco, Castilio, IJaUIiazar, in A.& M. and Ant. Rev. They make 
satire necessary often. See Feliche with them, A. & M., II, 1, and III, 2. Cf. Ant. 
Rev., 1,2; II, 1 ; III, 2, where a malcontent is lacking. 

" This, which appears in Tour, too, in imitation, is rather remarkable : see passages 
in note 3 and the following pases in Hullen. Ant. Rev. : 151, 149, 171-2, 178, 180, 190, 
147; and in connection with revenge, sanctifyintr it: 149, 151, etc. The striking 
thing is, that as the drama loses in ethical purit.w from Kyd through Tourneur, it 
gains in prophetic and religious parade. 

'^ A. & M., Feliche, pp. 19, 50, 51. Cf. Andrugio's splendid railing, III, 1. and 
Antonio's, III, 2, 203-12. 

■* Ant. Rev., IV, 1, 1-60, esp. " there is no essence mortal That I can envy, but a 
plump-cheek'd fool." — Of Kyd's irony of dialogue — understatement, and the state- 
ment of the contrary, for retort's sake and for safety's sake — there is some here, 
too. Ant. Rev., Ill, 1, 91-6, " for the good, good prince, most dear, dear lord," etc. ; 
Pandulfo with Piero, II, 1. 

' But //o.ff'. influences Tourneur. .See p. 105, note. 

* Hens., p. 173, " 29 of de.semhr 1602." It is likely, as Thorn, thinks, that Chettle 
is influenced only by the Sp. Tr. and Old Ham. There is nothing to prove contact 
with Shak. Chettle does not affect Web., so I refer the reader to Thorn, for a fuller 
di.scu.ssion of the relation of his play to Ham. 

103 



side of his sweetheart on a flowery bank in the moonlight ' ; Lucibella, 
like Ophelia, goes mad, wanders through the country, adorns herself 
with flowers, sings like songs, and, like Belimperia, discovers the 
murderer ; the Duchess, like Maria, is wooed by the murderer, and 
joins the conspiracy against him ; and the villain has a comic tool- 
villain, Lorrick by name, like Lazzarotto, Pedringano, and Strotzo, 
whom he uses until he has done, and then by craft despatches. And 
there is Latin, childish stratagems and intrigues, poison and slaughter, 
and the swearing of the conspirators.- One change there is, though, 
and that a great one : — the revenger and hero is now the villain. By 
the murder of Otho, Hoffman's vendetta was really accomplished at 
the beginning of the play, but he works on nevertheless, from sleight 
to sleight and nmrder to murder, against his enemy's kin. Really, 
he is a Machiavellian villain instead of a revenger — generally jocular 
and galliard in his nmrders instead of solenm and passionate, eager 
to inveigle others into doing them for him instead of performing a 
revenger's duty with his own hand, and more engaged, toward the 
end, in schemes of lust and ambition than in revenge; — a Piero, in 
short, turned revenger. This degeneration, made general by doing 
away with the ghosts, ^ is, however, too early to be more than 
sporadic ; there is life in the convention yet. 

The only play of Chapman's we have at all to consider is the Revenge 
of Bussy. The late dramas Alphonsus and Revenge for Honour, * — 
too late to have influenced Webster, —though containing some traces 
of the Kydian type, show by the Machiavellian sweeping crtielty, fraud 
and hypocrisy, atheism and valedictory cursing, ambition and lust, of 
their heroes or main characters, and the absence of the supernatural, 
or of revenge as a simple motive, that they belong to the type of the 
Jew of Malta and Lust's Dominion. The Revenge of Bussy, how- 
ever (though, like all the Bussy and Byron plays, strongly under the 
influence of the author of Tamburlaine) , approaches, as the conception 
indicated by the title makes unavoidable, the Kydian type. Much, 
indeed, is merely Senecan, not Kydian, whether derived directly, as 
the Nuntius, the Umbra,'"' the exuberance of Senecan philosophy and 

' To Thorn, thi.s scene seems more like the familiar one in Mid. Niglit's Dream. 
To me it seems far more like that in St>. Tr.. atid that it was infl\ienced by this the 
other points of contact with that play would tend to prove. 

" U. 208S-2102. Cf. Ant. Ret'., end Act IV, and the swearinij of his friends by 
Ham. 

' The ghost is, in a way, replaced by the body of his father, hanging there at 
hand to witness revenge and be addressed by his son. .\nd see below, p. 1U5, note. 

■* Pub. 1654. See App. II, for date. 

• Bus. Rev., V, 1, first speech, certainly Senecan at first hand. See first speeches 
in Asameni. and Thyes., — those: of Thyestis Umbra and Tan tali Umbra. 

104 



moralizing, the epic similes and stichomythia, or through the earlier 
English drama, as the conjuring and necromancy.' But from the 
Kydian drama — probably Marston's — was derived the devices of a 
Second Part to be entitled The Revenge, and of the ghost who demands 
revenge, " stands close " in the last act, and celebrates the fulfillment 
of his longings.- Yet Chapman ranges widely from the Kydian spirit 
and practice. With him the ghost is no longer the mainspring of the 
action, and appears in the last act only ; and this one and Chapman's 
other ghosts, — the dancing-part}^ of them at the last of the play, •' and 
the Umbra of the Friar in Bussy — are treated rather as convenient 
constructive features, convejnng news, directing movements, pro- 
phesying, and serving for ill omens. Of other foreshadowings, 
indeed, than oracles, or the prophecies and warnings from ghosts and 
spirits and the omen of their sheer appearance. Chapman has few, — 
no portents or presentiments.' And the old Kydian passion for 
revenge is quite absent. Clermont, the revenger, deprecates revenge, 
and the ghost of Bussy enounces it, as in a philosophical view of its 
cosmical relations, only a form of justice. 

TOURNEUR. 

It is Tourneur who continues the direct Kydian revenge tradition, 
and that, in the two tragedies which have descended to us, — the 
Revenger's Tragedy, published in 1607, and the Atheist's Tragedy in 
1611. In both, a son revenges, or refrains from revenging, a murdered 
father. In the one, his father's ghost does not appear, but he has at 
least the skull of his poisoned sweetheart, whom he is also revenging, 
to remind him ' ; in the other, the ghost of the father appears to 



' The last appears only in the first pt. of Bussy — the invocation of the spirit 
Behemoth (IV, 1) and the use of him to reveal by dumb-show what is taking place 
at the same time elsewhere, and to prophesy A device used by Web. See below. 
Possibly derived from Faustus or from such plays as 2 Hen. VI, I, 4, or its original. 
The First Pari of the Contention ; or from Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bnnsay- 

^ Cf. Andrugio's Ghost in Ant. Rev., introducing (like this) Act V with a long 
speech, " standing close " thereafter, " between the music-houses," to view the action 
and gloat. ^ Chap., Vol. Plays, p. 212. 

•* An " aversation," p. 196 ; bare mention of an ominous dream, p. 208 : and a wooden 
set of " ostents," p. 256. Aside from these, nothing but prophecies or warnings by 
oracles or " messengers." — In the ca.ses of Chettle and Chap, above, I have purposely 
omitted citations, except at points where they influence the later development of 
the Type. 

" As in Hoff., it takes the place of a ghost. And the first speech of the /?«'. Tr., 
as Churton Collins points out, is modelled upon the first of JHoff. Another point of 
contact with Chettle is the use of thunder and lightning as a sign from Heaven. 
Ho.ff., I. Uf ; Per. Tr., pp. 411, 42S. and Ath. Tr.. p. 279; still another, the cave as a 
scene of horror. 

105 



hinder his revenge. In the one, the revenger yearns to " stick the 
soul with ulcers ' " : in the other, he is warned to leave revenge to 
the King of Kings. In both, the son has a sweetheart — in the 
Revenger's Tragedy, dead, and, like Mellida, to be revenged ; in the 
Atheist's Tragedy, separated from him, as usual, by a villainous 
father. In the one, there is a masque at the end wth treachery, two 
torture and taunting scenes, ^ and startling portents ; in the other, 
church ^ and churchyard ■* scenes, the appearance of the ghost to 
the watch,'' and numerous presentiments.*' Common to both are 
violent deaths in horrible melodramatic surroundings, and the usual 
unmotived delay, or pointless activity, of the revenger. " 

Both plays are unmistakably under the shadow of Marston. In 
mental and moral quality and bent Tourneur and Marston are more 
alike than any two other dramatists of the Elizabethan age ; and, for 
the best of reasons, they are like in matters of form. The discipleship 
of Tourneur began early, with satirical writing, and it affected every 
fibre of his poetic and dramatic art, even his language and verse.' 
Tourneur cultivates Marston 's lively dialogue, his more complicated 
intrigue with its startling and horrible reversals, '' and his satirical 
characterization. He reproduces the preconcerted feigning of the 
villain and tool-villain, ' " the disguise of the revenger (only pushed to 
even greater extremes of improbability ' ' ) vidthout the ' ' antic disposi- 



* Rev. Tr.. Ill, 4. p. 395. 

" At the killing of the Duke, III, 4, and IvUssurioso, V, 3. 

^ As in Ant. Rev. ^ As in Ham. 

* As in Ham. "^ See below, p. 112. 
' The intrigue of the Rez>. Tr. being conducted more than usual by the revenger, 

but much of it not to the purpose ; and the intrigue of the Aih. Tr. being conducted 
by the villain. 

* Cf. the style of M.'s early poems and satires with T.'s Transformed Metamorpho- 
sis (1600) for cloudy rhetoric and outlandish vocabulary imitated vindoubtedly from 
the former. (See Collins's introd. to his ed.) T.'s metrical obligations to M. are 
equally great. See App. I. 

" Cf. Rev. Tr., Ill, 4, where the Duke gets a horrible surprise, with Ant. Rev., I, 2, 
190 f, where Antonio expects, at the removing of the curtain, to see Mellida at the 
window, and instead sees Feliche's corjJse. Cf. further Rev. Tr., Ill, 5, p. 400, where 
Ambitioso and Super vacuo receive, instead of L,ussurioso's head, their own brother's ; 
Soph., Ill, 1, 184, where Syphax discovers Vangue ; V, 1, Erichtho ; Ath. Tr., p. 314. 

'" Ath. Tr., II, 1, D'Amville and Borachio, and their forged tale. Cf. Piero and 
Strotzo, Ant. Rev., I, 2, and IV, 1. 

" M. and T. use disguise more freely and more unplausibly than any of the 
dramatists of the day. Just a change of suit, and you are safe with your father or 
mother or patron, who spoke with you a moment before! See the escape of Ant. 
and Mell. in disguise from under Piero's nose, and their failure to recognize even 
each other (,-J. Ct M., IV, 1) ; Ant.'s impenetrable disguise in Ant. Rei.'., Malevole's 
in Male, Ilercules's in Faivn , P'reevill's and Cocledemoy's still more audacious ones 

106 



tion ' ' of Antonio or Hamlet, '■ the treacherous masque at the close, 
and the revenger's frisky, anticipatory glee.^ He carries forward the 
same religious point of view, and develops further the Marstonian 
omens and portents. He adopts Marston's exclamatory manner — his 
appeals to Heaven,^ personiiications and apostrophes.' Nay, he 
copies such details as the Marstonian self-conscious references to 
rhetorical matters '° and to tragedy.*^ 

But it was not Marston's revenge play alone that influenced him : he 
abandoned the traditional Kydian plot which Marston had reproduced 
in Antonio'' s Revenge, invented his plots, as Marston did in the Mal- 
content and others, " and modelled them, especially the Revenger'' s 
Tragedy, much after these." Dondolo, the fool in the Atheist's 
Tragedy, is taken — name and character — from the Fawn^\ Levi- 



in the D. C. : Vendice's disguise which, after a few hours, effectually conceals him 
from both mother and sister, and the change to his true form, which permits him, 
as a complete stranger, to take service with his offended patron anew. Chap, in 
May Day, II, 4. p. 2S5, has surely Marston in mind as he inveighs against this 
"stale device"; — an opinion in which I am confirmed by Mr. Fleay's detection 
(I, p. 57) of ridicule of Marston in some quotations from him here, though Mr. 
Fleay makes something very different out of the " disguises." 

' Vendice disguises himself for safety as he takes ser\-ice with L,ussurioso, as Ant. 
takes the fool's costume in Ant. Rev., IV, 1. 

' Rei'. Tr., Ill, 4, pp. .i89-90 : V, 1, pp. 419-20, with corresponding vexation at the 
thought of losing the chance. This has all the" smartness," the dancing for glee, 
of Ant. on clutching little Julio, Ant. Rer., Ill, 1, 152 f, and on the point of murder- 
ing Piero, V, 2, 47 f. It is a characteristic of M. See Ma/c, III, 1. 286-9. 

^ " Angels," p. 372 ; " Heaven," p. 372 ; " O suffering Heaven," p. 368 ; " is there 
no thunder." p. 411; "Dost know thy cue," p. 428: "Heaven! is 't my fate." etc., 
p. 272 ; " Prithee tell me," " Nature," p. 275. 

* Apostrophe to Vengeance, Vend.'s first speech ; to Impudence, p. 355 ; to Liberty, 
385; to Night, 377 {ci. Marston's Ma/c, III, 1, p. 260-1); to love, 272; to sorrow, 293 ; as 
well as plenty of personification of abstract qualities without apos. : Advancement, 
368 ; opportunity, 283 ; love and courage, 260. (Cf. Ant. Rev., 124, hate, .sweet wrongs, 
etc.) Besides much personification of inanimate objects and addressing them, as 
" O hour," 357 ; " that twelve, the Judas of the hours," 357 ; " heaven " and " earth." 
372. 

^ P. 405, " you fetch about well "; 419, " I could vary it not so little as thrice over 
again," etc. ; 378, " you flow well," etc. Cf. Ant. Rev., 112, " retort and obtuse, good 
words," etc. ; pp. 113-14, " simile " ; 116, " nay, leave hyperboles, and thou canst not 
form hyperboles"; 125, " endear, and intimate; good," etc. ; 140, " I,ook, here 's a 
trope"; 153, " a very pretty word." Part of this, however, belongs to Balurdo's 
character. But it is to be found, both in this play and in others that served as 
models, quite oz<^ of character: as ^. Cr' il/., pp. 24, 27, 39 ; jV/a/c, 226, 254 ; /^a-wn, etc. 

^ P. 392, " tragic business," " useless property " ; 396, " then is the tragedy good " ; 
344, "tenant to tragedy"; 429, "heaven likes the tragedy"; 429, "a piteous 
tragedy " ; 337, " their deserved tragedies." 

' See Koeppel's J. M., B. c2f F., on M.'s plots. ^ See p. 110, note. 

® Pub. 1606, and (see above, pp. 17, 18) very probably written the same year : hence 
a pretty secure clew to the backward limit of the date of Rev. Tr. .See App. I. 

107 



dulcia is imitated from th.e Insatiate Countess '; Vendice, as revenger, 
tool-villain, and malcontent critic, all in one, from the Malcontent. 
Marston's Malcontent, indeed, is the main model. - There is the same 
tissue of lust and unspeakable crime for a plot, the same ' ' humor- 
ous " ' method of character-drawing with the tell-tale Italian adjectives 
for names, the same baboonish creatures drawn, ^ the same intoler- 
able atmosphere of corruption, ghoulish humor,' prurient railing, 
and satiric characterization," and much the same vein of sombre, 
curious meditation . 

These meditations of the malcontent, though in the mouth of a 
revenger, have, both in Marston's Malcontent axvA in Tourneur, nothing 
to do with revenge ; and deserve further consideration, both in them- 
selves, as surviving in Webster, and also as affording an explanation 
of the satiric and cynical bent of these writers. Those of Malevole 
are sombre broodings, somewhat like those of Solomon in Ecclesiastes, 
more like those of Hamlet in the churchyard (by which, however, they 
were not inspired '), and the sum of them is, all is alike, all is vanity 
and filth : 

Think this : — this earth is the only grave and Golgotha wherein all things that 
live must rot; 'tis bnt the draught wherein the heavenly bodies discharge their 
Corruption : the ver\- muck-hill on which the sublunary orbs cast their excrements : 
man is the slime of this dung-pit, and princes are the governors of these men ; for, 
for our souls, they are as free as emperors, all of one piece ; there goes but a pair of 
shears betwixt an emperor and the son of a bag-piper ; only the dying, dressing, 
pressing, glossing, makes the difference. Male, IV, 2, 140-151. 

I ha' seen a sumptuous steeple turned to a stinking *• privy ; more beastly, the 

* Suggested by Collins. - See below, p. 110, note. 
' In the EHz. sense of " humor," as in Every Man in his Httmotw. 

■* Such as Ambitioso, Spurio, Svipervacuo, I^ussurioso : cf. Don Znccone and Sir 
Amoroso Debile Dosso in Fazcn, Bilioso, RIaquerelle, and Passarello, etc., in Male. — 
Don Zuccone ("cuckold ") as jealous man. Sir Amoroso as the weakling lover, are 
done similarly (though not so revoltingly) to Spurio, L,u.ssurioso, etc. The same 

humorous " method appears also in Malevole, Vendice, etc. They are settled types, 
as even their names indicate. See below, pp. 124-7. 

* I mean such jests as : Fawn, IV, 1, 546, and Rev. Tr., I, 3, p. 356, " bonesetter." 
Such ingenious, ghastly gaiety as Vendice's over the skull, 391-3 ; D'Amville's, 312 ; 
or Snuffe's mistake, 314, like Syphax's discovery of Vangue, and later of Erichtho. 

* See above, on Mars., p. 103. .Satirical characterization had appeared \\\ A.<2f M. 
and Ani. Rev., railing (Feliche's) in A. & M., but prurient railing and prurient 
satiric characterization appear first in Male, D. C, and Fawn. 

' That Hamlet's broodings are not the original is proved ab.solutely by the date of 
the Male, 1600. But other things show it. Hani.'s broodings are dramatically 
formed, not of this professional, " humorous " cast (see below, fj. 133). They are a 
freer, more human development, such as could arise from these. 

" He has a great predilection for the words dirt and stink. He has passages such 
as these: Male, p. 222, "Did your signorship ne 'er see a pigeon house, that was 

108 



sacredest place made a dog"s kennel, nay, most inhuman, the stoned cofl&ns of long- 
dead Christians burst up, and made hogs' troughs : hie finis Priami. 

II. 3, 195-200.' 
or, as Hamlet says, 

O that that earth, which kept the world in awe. 
Should patch a wall to expell the ^vinter's fla'w ! 

Now this pessimistic brooding, which bores down to dirt and decay, 
if cherished, would furnish sombre, uncanny imagery for illustration 
of common discourse ; if carried into the moral region, would lead to 
obscenest cynicism. This is the case with Marston, not merely in the 
character of malcontent, but generally : his main fund of imagery is 
from death and dirt, he is penetratingly cynical, and his humor is not 
only filthy, but often inventiveh-, morbidh- filth\-. Satire and railing 
are a luxury to him : he knows how to lay things so bare ; he can be 
so prurient in his righteous indignation . 

Such is' the case with Tourneur, too. and worse.- His malcontent, 
Vendice, meditates and broods in the same spirit as Malevole, but 
only on the darkest themes. He utters the same disgust -w-ith the day 
as Malevole, '• but always on lust and nameless crimes. His main aim 
in his brooding and burro\^-ing, indeed, is to throw up the dust and 
ashes under fleshly passion ; and he broods and dilates ingeniously, 
with a curious, Donne-like fanc\', on slight things as if the}- were 
beings in themselves, as the once worshipped eye or lip of the 
woman's skull before him, or the " minute "* of pleasure. The tran- 
sitoriness of these all ' ! And this ingenuity and pointed force — worse 
than Marston "s impudence — produces, when disposed to gaiety, a 
humor of the most unsightly sort.® These traits permeate all the fibre 



smooth, round, and white without, and full of holes and stink within ? " Cf. A. <2f M., 
II, 1, p. 35. " Egyptian louse," " maggot," etc. 

» Other such passages are Male. IV, 2, 25-30 : I, 1, 290-300 : III, 1, 274-79. 

* I give the pages where Vendice's more considerable meditations occur : 406-7, 
356-7, ( Charlemonts ) 307-8, 391-2, 377 (on night and what it hides, as Feliche in 
A.(2fAf., p. 49, and Toumeurs quality and contribution appear on comparison of 
the two ) . 

' Continual allusion to this " luxurious day, " " age," etc. See pp. 247, 355, 358, 
360, 367, 368, etc. * Rev. Tr.. 362. 

' See ref. in note 2. As in this mild and unobjectionable instance of his brooding, 
p. 344. He addresses the skull of his sweetheart : 

O thou terror to fat folks. 
To have their costly three-piled flesh worn off 
As bare as this ; for banquets, ease, and laughter 
Can make great men, as greatness goes by clay ; etc. 

* See ref. above, note 2, esp. that to pp. 391-3. 

109 



of Tourneur's thought, and color his imagery.' As with Marston, 
moreover, this prurient cynicism breaks out in the malcontent often in 
the form of satire, of indignant railing, even delivered, infaiidum! , 
from that " height of contemplation "- assumed by Marston on other 
occasions, — " that eternal ej-e, that sees through flesli and all" ^ ! 

As for the particular type of the malcontent himself — Vendice, — 
he, like Malevole and no other, and unlike the first, simple malcon- 
tent, Feliche, ' is not only malcontent — cynical critic and sombre 
meditator — but also revenger and tool-villain,''' all in one. A chaos 
of psychology and morals ! But it is worse in Tourneur. In Malevole 
many of the jars arise still, as in Feliche — therefore within the limits 
of the character of malcontent proper, — from his language, from the 
inconsistency of his foul talk with his pretentions as righteous critic 
and meditator ; and as tool-villain in tempting his own wife, he does 
not go to work with such needless alacrity and thoroughness as Ven- 
dice." But in both, the three parts are morally — humanly — at 

* To clioose unobjectionable and very forcible ones : " stick thy soul with ulcers," 
p. 395; "had he been taken from me like a piece o' dead flesh," 276. He uses: 
"acfue, " 356 ; " tetter," 293 ; various revolting imagery, 302-3 ; " damps that rise from 
bodies half rotten in their graves, " 312, etc. Two very characteristic images, very 
common in Marston and Tourneur, borrowed, probably, by the latter : "Paint a rot- 
ten post, " 329 ; cf. Marston, Satire, X, "paint not a rotten post with colours rich " ; 
" bound to the dead carca.ss of a man," 313 ; cf. D. C, p. 27, " acarca.ss three months 
dead " {m\A Fawn, p. 128, " thou didst bind the living and dead bodies together, 
and forced them so to pine and rot "). — This subject, in coini. with Web., is reserved 
to fvirther discussion. See Pref. 

' See above p. 103, note. " See AVt. Tr., \i. 357, for an instance. 

* In /}. & M. I-'irst, that is, in revenge dramas. 

* Malevole as tool-villain to the villain Mendoza ; Vendice to IvUssurio.so. Both 
in disguise, and for their own ends, but going needless, shameful lengths in 
obedience. 

* Marston's Male, though called a comedy, has much of the technique of a 
revenge play — has even the revenge-play treacherovis masque at the end to bring 
about the ( bloodless ) catastrophe. At all events, Malevole is certainly the model to 
Vendice in his triple character : is the malcontent critic par excellence, becomes in 
his disguise the tool of Mendoza the i)rincipal villain, takes money from him (Afalc, 
III, 1, 2S3, and Rev. Tr., I, 3, pp. 355-7, 40S), when receiving the villain's commis.sion 
to commit murder and to tempt his own wife, just as Vendice when receiving his to 
kill Piato and to tempt his own mother and sister {Male, V, 2 ). Be.sides, so far as 
may be in acouiedy , he is a revenger. He undertakes by his machinations to .spoil the 
other villain's ( Pietro's) peace of mind, and his revenge, which he speaks of often, 
" the dear soul kills " ( I, 1, 195-210 ). Vendice, then, is modelled on Malevole ; and 
when we consider this fact along with the further revenge-element, — the Machia- 
vellian villain Mendoza, who is hypocritical, exults in ev.il (p. 267), usurps, 
schemes to marry the wife of the old duke, expresses a hypocritical affection for his 
tools, and tries to despatch them with poison in the conventionally crafty way, follow- 
ing the Machiavellian axiom of " nails to drive out one another " (IV, 1, 240-1; V, 2, 
236 ), and orders ( after the revenge-play style ) his own fatal masque ( p. 306 ) ; con- 

110 



variance, without a qualm or scruple to make them plausible, — nothing 
but the factotum disguise. This throws light on Marston's and Tour- 
neur's morals, but more, as we shall see, on their dramaturgic art.' 

Finally, what more formal contribution has Tourneur made to the 
Kydian type, play by play? In the Revenger's Tragedy the main thing, 
of course, is the break, heralded by the Malcontent, with the old 
stereotyped plot (consisting of revenge, idyllic love-story, love 
between villain and revenger's mother, with madness and feigned 
madness, ghosts, ranting mood-scenes and soliloquies, dirges and the 
rest), and the adoption of a new storj', in which revenge yields place, 
in a measure, to more piquant motives, such as seduction and pander- 
ing. One of the most striking elements of this is the consolidation of 
malcontent, revenger, and ( by playing a part in disguise ) of tool- 
villain, as in Vendice ; — of itself a sign of the decay of the revenge 
motive. Another is the development of the portents. This conven- 
tion, though quite as unreal as those of revenge and ghosts, had its 
course yet to run ; and the comet which foretells the death of 
princes actually blazes on the stage, and the voice of God answers 
Vendice's appeal in thunder.- In Marston the portents were only 
reported on the stage, but here they are represented immediately, 
as a result of patent effort after intenser melodramatic effect. These, 
together with a condensed, often crabbed, but pointed and brilliant 
style, after Marston's fashion boldly figurative, and an increasing 
amount of railing at princes, intelligencers, and whoremongers at 
large, and a further development of the melodramatic setting in the 
shape of the dark cave and the painted skull at the scene of torture, •' 
are the main contributions from this play to the type. 

The Revenger's Tragedy stands unmistakably under the shadow of 
Marston ; the Atheist's Tragedy, as echoes from Macbeth, Lear, 
Othello, and other plays,' and borrowings from Hamlet, indicate, 



sider, further, the break made in this play with the old Kydian story ( followed so 
faithfully in Ant. Rev.) and the substitution of an intrigue of lust, "humorous" 
characterization (in some measure), with Italian tell-tale names, we cannot but 
conclude, I think, that the Male, is imitated by the Rm. Tr.. is, thoug-h a tragi- 
comedy , the real innovator in the development of the type, and is the connecting link 
between Rev. Tr. and Ant. Rev. ' See below, p. 124 f. 

' .See pp.411, 427, 428-9, and one in Ath. Tr.. 279 : comet and thunder, the latter 
three times in answer to appeals to God and once in denial of a blasphemous state- 
ment. See above, p. 105, note. In Tour, portents play the part of the supernatural 
left vacant by the ghosts. 

^ See similar development in Ath Tr. ; the cave ( probably derived from Hoff.), 
the gravel-pit, the skulls in the churchyard, the gallows (appears in Sp. Tr.). 

* The name Borachio probably derived from Much Ado: p. 251," And I am of a 
confident belief That even the time, place, manner of our deaths Do follow Fate 

111 



somewhat under that of Shakspere. The echoes, which serve (some 
of them) as corroborative evidence, may be relegated to the foot- 
notes ; but the borrowings from Hamlet demand further consid- 
eration . As in Hamlet, there is a man killed by his brother through 
treachery, whose ghost appears to his son at night to admonish him, 
is bid by the sentinel to stand, and (instead of being struck at with a 
partisan) is fired at. As in Hajiilet, the ghost appears later, but to 
remind the hero of the duty of patience instead of revenge. And 
as in Ha>iilet, there is a churchj'ard scene, with curious meditations on 
man's end from the lips of the hero (not a malcontent) more like Shaks- 
pere's Hamlet's than any others I have found, — suggested directly 
by the situation, and that a like one, and freed of the set humorousness 
of Vendice's or Malevole's. There is an idyllic love-story, moreover, 
of the old Spanish Tragedy diU^ Hamlet sort, — the son of the mur- 
dered man separated, again, by the villain from his daughter by force 
and craft. Now the distinctly Marstonian elements of the Kydian type, 
so evident in the Revenger^ s Tragedy, are all gone ^ : the portents, ^ 
the masque with its treachery, the malcontent with his railing and 
his gruesome meditations, and the torture scene. So, even though 
some of the features of the Hamlet stor}- adduced above mav have 
been taken from the Old Hamlet, or from Antonio^ s Revenge, it is 
likelier that the}^ come from a new source, the same as that of the 
verbal borrowings, — vShakspere. ' 



with that necessity," etc., probably from Ham., V, 2, 230 f; p. 287, "Our boyling 
fantasies L,ike troubled waters falsify the shapes of things retained in them," etc^ 
Mac, I, 3, 79 ; p. 294, " so you '11 put money i' my purse," Othello, I, sc. 3.345, 347, 349, 
351, 353, 359 ; p. 299, Castabella's account of mercy, possibly imitated from Portia's ; 
pp. 307-8, Charlemont's meditations in the churchyard and Ham.'s; p. 322. " The sea 
wants water enough to wash away the foulness of my name," perhaps (though 
the notion is to be found even in Greek), from Mac, II, 2, 50-2 (these three pointed 
out by Collins) ; and D'Amville's raving, p. 332, " I would find out by his anatomy 
What thing there is in Nature," from Lear, III, 6, 80, 81 ; and p. 333, " I will find out 
The efficient cause of a contented mind," Lear. Ill, 6, 81-2. These from Lear, as well 
as Charlemont's meditations, are pretty clear cases. For the latter, see below, and 
for the former, see Ai>p. I. The rest, except that from Othello, are dubious ; — but 
nothing of the sort appears in Rei'. Tr. 

' I mean just this much and no more : M.'s spirit still rules T. in many noticeable 
■ways; for instance — the further development of the melodramatic setting, the 
treatment of the horrors of the gravel-pit, and of the churchyard by night amid the 
skulls, and the very Marstonian trick on Snuffe. 

' There is one left, II, 4, p. 279, — the pat thunder and lightning. 

' Thorn, finds nothing of .Shak.'s influence (though, of course, that of Old//a>«.),^ 
for he is led astray by his chronology. — Whether Charlemont be modelled upon Ham. 
or not, he certainly has interesting points of resemblance. Thorn, notes that he 
has Hieronimo's and Ham.'s bent for meditation, his eagerness to die and be rid of 
life's burden. But that the " gentle boys " (v. p. 99), all but Horatio, likewise have, 

112 



This is the first trace of Shakspere's influence that we have found. 
He hardly could plume himself much upon it, for the play is inferior 
to its predecessor in artistic worth, and is one of the rawest, most 
unpalatable existent. Yet really of influence, aside from direct bor- 
rowings of phrase and situation, there is little. Traces of such may be 
found in the abundant presentiments, wljich supplant the Marstonian 
portents of the Revenger' s Tragedy, the emancipation from the blood- 
thirstiness of the Revenger's Tragedy, and, not improbably, the 
innovations in metre.' 

The two great innovations of the AtheisVs Tragedy, however, are 
sprung from Tourneur's own brain. The one is the introduction of a 
reflective element which is continuous, ^ is connected wdth the course 
of the stor)', and is led by it to a final upshot or moral. This last 
is double : — -that there is a providence that rules the world, and 
that the honest man's revenge is patience. How different from the 
disjointed meditations of the earlier revenge plays, wHlthout any 
didactic issue ^ ! The second innovation is the repudiation of the 
revenge-niotive by means of revenge machinery, so as to sound, with- 
out seeking it at all, like a parody.* This reactionary cry shows that 
the convention of revenge, as motive of the hero at least, had about 
run its course. 

The Second Maiden's Tragedy. 

The next revenge play following the Ai/ieisfs Tragedy, and the last 

before Webster, is the Second Maiden' s Tragedy, licensed to act by 

Sir George Buc, October 31st, 1611. The name of the author is 

unknown,'' but it is a fact that Tourneur, whether author or not. 



and in a form that the raging Marshal has it not. Here, as in the points adduced 
p. 99, note, Hamlet, Antonio {Ant. Rn>., p. 143), and Charlemont are very like, 
and very different from revengers contaminated with malcontent and tool-villain 
like Malevole and Vendice. 

' The advent, in considerable number, of light and weak endings ; the abandon- 
ment of rime, Marstonian riming-methods and rhythm. See App. I. 

* Thorn, notices this. — The rise of it can be traced, I think, from the sophistical 
speculations in the RezK Tr. and in such of Marston's plays as the D. C. 

' This double moral is enounced by those concerned in it : that against atheism by 
the atheist D'Amville, p. 336, and that against revenge by the revenger who does not 
revenge, Charlemont, z'd.— Yet another moral there is, in my opinion, but one less 
conspicuous, — against lust. I,evidulcia is emphatically the adulteress, as D'Amville 
the atheist: like him she seeks to defend her position philosophically (pp. 261, 320, 
etc.), and like him she sees the error of her way, and, at her end, points the moral, 
p. 322. 

* The ghost, for instance, bolting in and out as of old, crying for forbearance 
instead of revenge. 

° Both author and title: "This Second Maiden's Tragedy (for it hath no name 
inscribed) may, with the reformations, bee acted publickly, 31 October, 1611, G. Buc." 

113 



greatly influencid the play. Ilelvetius's temptation of his daughter 
to yield to his master and \'otarius's temptation of the wife of his 
friend Anselmus at his instigation, together contain all the elements 
of Vendice's temptation of his mother and sister ' ; and the conversion 
of Ilelvetius through his children is very like that of Gi'atiana through 
hers. The painting and poisoning of the face and lips of the woman 
as a means of revenge on her ravisher is identical with Vendice's 
cx])edient in the Rci'cuger's Tra_iirciy, even to the preposterous dis- 
guise of the poisoner. - The bloody, bustling intrigue of the under- 
plot-'' resembles that in the Atheist's Tragedy ; and the ending, with 
the death of the villain and the prosperous survival of the hero, that 
of the same i)l;iy. l\Iinor correspondences, too, are not lacking — a 
church and *omb scene with a sentimental visit of the lover,' the 
villain's supercilious conception of court-life as above virtue, ' and the 
pangs of the husband at hearing, amid the throes of death, that he is 
a cuckold. Hut what is most like Tourneur and what most interests 
our study, now that the fonii of the Kydian type is nearly dissolved, 
is the sjiirit and tone of the play. As in the .U/ieisi's 7^r(igr(/v,iho\\gh 
not quite so completely, the revenge-motive has died down : the ghost 
saj'S nothing of it, and the motive of the revenger is more to recover 
the ravished lady than to revenge." The sentiment of the loves 
of Charlemoiil and Castabella reappears in the sentiment between 

Haz. J^cds.. vol. X, p. >iS,i. IU)tli MassinRci's ami Timnioii s names Iiaw lutn 
siiK;Kest«l as aiUhors, the latter by IMcay. There is nothiiin in favor of Mass. except 
the poisoning sc. in the Diike of Milati, and the presence of a play of his in the list 
of those destroyed by Warburton's cook, with the title The Tyrant, which would fit 
this play very well. Uut the poisoning- sc. points equally well to Tour., as well as 
much other evidence cited above. — We cannot, of course, be quite sure of our chron. 
I'ossibly the W. J), precedes ..V. M. Tr. But .see above (pp. 21, 22, Dekker's Kpistle, 
etc.), and below. \i. IIS, note. 

' The vow urRiuK him, in the second case. 

'■■ The kiuR had seen him so recently and known him .so thorouRlily ! 

' 1 mean the story of Anselmus, his wife ^'otarins, Ivconella the waitiiiR maid, 
and Hcllariiis her lover, little less closely connected with the main issue of this play 
than the story of I.evididcia, llelforest her liu.sband, Sebastian her lover, Snuffe 
and Sociuctte, etc., is with that of the Ath. Tr. Under-plots are novelties in the 
Kydian RevcuRe play, thouRli there is somcthiuR of one in the Ker. Tr. 

* As in A/li. Tr., Ill, 1. 

* This is strikiuRly like I,>issurio.so's in Kn\ Tr. See AVr. Maid. Tr. in Dods., 
X, pp. 447, 4(i3. Cf. A'^'. Tr., p. 406, "should we name Cod in a salutation, 'twould 
ne'er be stood on " ; p. 36'^ "the better sort cannot abide it " [charity]; p. 371. " you 'd 
scorn to think o' the devil, an \o\\ were there once " [at courtl. — This is a .sort of 
satire peculiar to T. 

" The word " reveuRe " is used at pp. 461, 464 ; but pp. 451-3'and the last sc. .show 
how little of that feeliuR there really is, and how the thiuR really insisted on is that 
the body shall be reinterred, that it may have rest. The conversation of Covianus 
and the Rhost is mostl.v exchauRc of endearments. 

lU 



Goviaiius and his Ivady. And, most significant of all, the peculiar 
diseased moral tone reappears in the ghoulish humor and ghastly 
gaietv ' at the disinterment, and in the horrible conception of the 
Tyrant's passion for the dead.- 

Many elements of the play, however, had other sources. vSome 
belong still to the revenge tradition. From Kyd or from Marston 
come the api^earance of the hero in black, book in hand, to meditate''; 
from Marston alone, the visit of the hero by night to the church, the 
address to the departed spirit, and the rise of the ghost from the 
tomb '; possibly from Marston, too, the reappearance of the ghost at 
the end."' Other elements, .still of seeming Marstonian .stamp, are 
without the pale of the revenge tradition . vSuch are the points of con- 
tact with Sophonisba : the cla.ssical (but not Roman) atmosphere," the 
killing of the wife to .save her,' the crowning of her at the end, and 
the old, classical motive of the gho.st's complaint at being denied 
burial.' Such, too, are tho.se with the Malcotitent : — a deposed, 
righteous ruler in disgui.se and a usurping tyrant, the righteous ruler 
coming again at the la.st to his own. 

What is the contribution made by this play to the type? The 
revenge action, first of all, .starts, not at the beginning of the play, 
but near the end ; and then not at the death of the lady, but only 
after her ghost informs the hero of the theft of her body. Secondly, 
the revenge-motive is weakened down to little more than recov- 
ery of one's rights. Thirdly, the gho.st is a woman, the revenger's 
wife, r'ourthly, a .soft, sentimental tone appears, especially in the 
two tender .songs, in the treatment of the relations of Govianusand 
his lady, and (mo.st conspicuously for a revenge play) in the words 
of the gho.st. Fifthly (still further betraying a sentimental bent), a 
new .stagecraft is employed, which aims at the sensations — the harm- 
less .scares — and the spectacular effects of Beaumont and Fletcher." 
Such are : the final happy outcome for Govianus ; Govianus's charging 
upon his wife, sword in hand, only to swoon at the last step, ' " and his 
felling his father-in-law by a pistol-.shot without injuring him' ' ; the 
.spectacular resurrection of the ghost from the tomb in "a great light 



' .See 1)]). 448, 463, 464. * P. 4,50. 

" .See p. 452 and last sc. * I'p. 450-1. 

' As in Ant. Rev., last act. 

" The I<atinish names. Definite sc. of action there is none. 

' Keall.v, she has to kill herself, which is also a classical motive, p. 432. 

" As in Asdrnbal's uhost, who appears to Syphax. None of these, of course, need 
to have been taken from Maxston. 

" How far this is actually influenced by I!, and !■'. is a problem in chronology not 
here to be solved. Wc can <)nl.\' note siniil.iritics. See further lielow, p. IIH and note. 

'° P. 432. " P. 411. 

115 



. . . all in white, stuck with jewels, and a great crucifix on her 
breast " ^; and the operatic finale, with the crowning of the body, the 
gentle ghost itself standing by. — All this is much changed, observe, 
from the simple old story of Hieronimo and his son, or of Hamlet and 
his father ; more changed, in plot and treatment alike, than anj' play 
we have examined, even the AtheisVs Tragedy ; for the only vestiges 
■of Hamlet or the Spanish Tragedy remaining are the ghost, - the 
revenger in black with a book in his hand, and the bare name of 
revenge. 

III. THE WHiTii DFA'IL AND MALFI AS REVENGE PLAYS. 

We now approach the last and, with one immortal exception, 
greatest of revenge plays — Webster's. Yet, before that, one glance 
back at the development of the type up to him. Kyd started it, as 
we have seen, with a simple, melodramatic, and bloody plot, built 
on the motive of revenge for father or for son under sanction of super- 
natural incentives, with a Senecan technique of mood-scenes, long 
speeches, and soliloquies on justice, death, fate, fortune, suicide, 
and revenge, of an induction or chorus, ghosts and presentiments, 
crude stratagems and stage effects, '' and a tumid, artificial style. This 
plot and technique have, but for vestiges, disappeared, or have been 
replaced b}' their more modern melodramatic equivalents. The re- 
venge motive has weakened in force, and has had to yield a place by 
its side to other motives — of lustful intrigue, ambition, satire, etc., — 
still melodramatically and bloodily treated. New roles and devices 
have arisen, such as the malcontent, the ridiculous affected person, 
the masque as a stratagem, the torture-scene, the poisoning-scene, 
portents, the revenger's disguise, songs, spectacles, and the like. In 
these, two tendencies prevail : first, an inclination to enrich the melo- 
dramatic setting — to accumulate night-scenes, torturings, properties 
like the skull and dark cave, to exploit the supernatural as a 
spectacle, ' and to develop in sympathy with this a figurative, pictur- 
esque stj-le ; and second, a bent for cynical, imaginative reflection and 
meditation. These tendencies, together with the new technique and 
the remnants of the old, pass over to Webster. 

Both of Webster's tragedies are, we learned on p. 93, emphatically 
and by choice, Senecan and Kj'dian. The bare motive revenge was 
practically all this sort of thing he could draw from his sources, 



' p. 451. 

* Both omens and presentiments are quite lacking: here. 
^ Cf. Thorndike. 

* As itj the portents, and spectacles such as that of the ghost's first appearance in 
Sec. Maid. Tras. 

116 



and the supernatural, the tortures, the abundant bloodshed, and the 
melodramatic accessories and setting were almost altogether his own 
addition . 

The White Devil. 
The White Devil, the earlier, is also the more old-fashioned. The 
revenge is for murder. The revenger holds an old-style soliloquy to 
spur himself on to the deed, ' and the ghost of his dead sister appears 
to him. There is a villain (not the revenger), and a tool-villain and 
malcontent combined.- There is a scene of poisoning, two torture- 
scenes ■' in which the revengers are disguised and yearn to kill both 
body and soul,* two reminiscences of the treacherous revels,^ madness 
in the villain and feigned madness, *^ omens for presentiments, '^ cynical 
meditations, a highly imaginative and picturesque style, menaces in 
Latin," and even allusions to "tragedy."^ With this, there is more 
novel matter. One ghost is a woman. There are spectacles (but with- 
out sentiment) as in the Second Maiden's Tragedy, dumb-shows and 
conjuring after Chapman's style,'" Cornelia's ravings and her dirge, ' ' 
and Isabella's and Brachiano's ghosts. vSpectacles I call them, for 
neither of the ghosts speaks ; the one is frankly nothing more than 
mental image of his sister, ' - and the other, with his pot of lily-flowers 

* As in Ham. and Sp. Ti. ; IV. D., Ill, 3, pp. 7S-S0. 

* The villain Brachiano ; the malcontent tool-villain Flaniineo, according to his 
own account (pp. 119, 130) cheated, as were Strotzo, Pedringano, L,orrick, I,azzarotto, 
but not, as they, with death. 

^ As the revengers, disguised as Capuchins, bait Brachiano : and as they at the 
end bait Vittoria and Flamineo. 

* This last often : W. D., pp. 100, 101, 110, 117, 118. 

' ' Our duchess' revels,' the occasion which the conspirators take to work their 
revenge. See p. 100, where Brachiano, by inviting them, invents, as Gasparo says, 
his own ruin ; this last an ironic trick sometimes added in connection with the 
masque, as in the Sp. Tr., where the play is proposed by the unwitting victim 
Lorenzo; in Ant. Rev., where Piero orders his masque (IV, l,314f). — See further 
IV. D., p. 110, " now to the barriers," and 111, Flamineo's cry, " Here 's unfortunate 
revels ! " Also p. 137, " we have brought you a masque," etc. 

® Brachiano's and Cornelia's madness ; Flamineo's feigned madness for safety's 
sake, IV. D.. pp. 67, 68. 

' The only thing resembling a presentiment is Marcello's remark (p. 107) about 
Flamineo's breaking the crucifix. To my mind, it is completely objective, — not a 
presentiment. 

" As well as much other Latin : pp. 40, 62, 80, 117. ' /r. D.. p. 79. 

'" IV. I)., pp. 47, 48. See below. 

'' IV. D., p. 126, Frankly introduced as a spectacle : " They are behind the traverse ; 
I '11 discover their superstitious howling." 

" IV. D., p. 79 : And in a melancholic thought I '11 frame 

Enter Isabella's ghost. 
Her figure 'fore me. Now I ha 't — how strong 
Imagination works ! etc. 

117 



and skvill, castinjj: earth on Flaniineo, is little more than a symbol 
of death, a slightly operatic omen of evil.' And there are stagey 
elements, possibly drawn from the Second Maiden'' s Tragedy, — 
Cornelia's rushing at Flamineo with her knife drawn and stopping 
short of him, and Vittoria's shooting Flamineo down with a blank 
charge.^ 

The Duchess of Malfi. 

Malfi, last of Kydian revenge-plays, is a long step ahead, both in 
the discarding of worn-out conventionalities, and in the harmonious 
development, after the stern Kydian spirit, of sombre, melodramatic 
setting, meditation, and style. It has no ghost, no- poisoning-scene, 
no conjuring, no revenger's soliloquy or feigned madness, no killing 
of the soul, or blood-curdling Latin. A revenger there is, a villain 
and a malcontent tool-villain, who is, as of old, ill-served '' ; a multi- 
plicity of omens and a prolonged torture-scene, — but all are newly 
treated. The convention of revenge as prime motive, long a-dying, is 
now dead ; it no longer drew the sympathy of the audience to the 
hero ; and, whereas in the White Devil, villains and hero had to 
be villains, in Malfi the place of the victim, hitherto held by the 
villain, is taken by the hero, * and the revenger, as the now prevailing 
moral and esthetic canons require, is represented as he is — a villain.' 
The tool-villain, on the other hand, who, like Flamineo and unlike 
Malevole and Vendice, is tool-villain in his own character and not as a 
disguise, chooses, after being cheated, the better part, and avenges 
his victim." And the torture-scene — the torture of the heroine now, 
not of the villain — is made the centre of interest and plot." Many 
old, specially Marstonian devices, also, are used anew. The tool- 
villain as torturer is disguised ; omens, presentiments, and gloomy 
natural phenomena are introduced, not as with Tourneur for momen- 
tary, astounding effect, but, somewhat as with Marston, to infuse a 

' /^. Z>., pp. 128-9. So Flamineo himself interprets it 

" IV. D., pp. 109, 135. See above, p. 115. And both of these tricks appear in B. & F.'s 
Hon. Man. Fori., " plaide in the yeare 1613," ace. to the superscription of Dyce's 
Ms. As each of the three plays contains both of the tricks, it would .seem as if they 
were directly related. The earliest ascertainable date is that of Sec. Maid. Trag., 
Oct. 31, 1611. Yet I cannot help thinking B. & F. the likelier .source: such tricks 
•are more in keepincr with their .sensational art. See below, Chap. IV. W. D. is very 
unlikely, both on account of date (see above, p. 22) and of W."s great dependence 
(esp. in IV. D.) as a dramaturgist. 

^ Bosola cheated by Ferdinand, as was Flamineo by Brachiano, Mai., p. 250. 

* That is, heroine, the Duchess. 

* Ferdinand, and less actively, the Cardinal. 

* Bo.sola, end of Act IV, p. 251, and on. 

' F'ngrossing', as it does, an entire act (IV), and containinsf Web.'s most elaborate 
art and nol)lest poetry. 

118 



vague, onward-looking fear and dread ^ ; and meditations far more in 
the vein of Malevole than of Vendice, ethical and stoic ideas recalling 
Marston's, and satirical characterization are further developed. Spec- 
tacular and lyrical tendencies, moreover, in form somewhat like those 
of the Second Maiden's Tragedy, but of a sterner, more melancholy 
spirit, here come to their climax. There are the " noble ceremonies " 
of the cardinal's investiture as a warrior and of the banishment of the 
duchess, and the dumb-show of the wax figures of her dead husband 
and children ; a dirge, ^ two songs, a dance of madmen, and a weird 
Echo-scene. These, together with the brooding weight of omens and 
presentiments, a style encrusted with highly- wrought, sombre imagery, 
a setting of night and gloom, and a paraphernalia of torture and uncanny 
properties beyond example, give an effect of tragic environment and 
atmosphere more varied and complete than any hitherto on the melo- 
dramatic stage. 

IV. WEBSTER'vS CONTRIBUTION TO THE REVENGE TYPE. 
The Revenge motive. 

In completing the development of the Kydian revenge-play, what 
did Webster contribute to it? The revenge motive, first of all, loses 
with him its conventional character as a duty, and has to fall back upon 
Nature as its basis, upon the moral sentiment of the day ; it can be 
no longer, therefore, the part for a hero, but must fall to the villain. 
This return to Nature — the inevitable lot of conventions — was brought 
about, as I think, by three causes : the rapid degeneration of the con- 
vention in the hands of the Kydian authors, the widely divergent 
moral and esthetic taste of the day, and Webster's own character. 
Marston and Tourneur, as we have seen, united revenger, malcontent, 
and tool-villain — incompatible elements — and by the intolerable 
chaos in character and morals thus resulting from the attempt to rep- 
present sympathetically one who professes a sacred dutj' and severe, 
high-flown notions of morality, and himself on the flimsiest of pre- 
texts not only talks and acts disgracefully, but even plays tool-villain 
and pander, made it necessary that the next revenger, Govianus, 
should have that quality only in name, that the following one, 
Francisco'^ in the White Devil, should be one of the villains, and the 
next, Ferdinand, Wie viWain par excellence. As to the second, taste 
in the day of the White Devil and Malfi was ruled ( or represented, if 



' See below (as in the case also of the other statements) the fuller discussion. 

* Dirg-e, pp. 243-4 ; songs, 222-3 and 239. 

^ Francisco shows scarcely any honorable or attractive traits : he has his murder- 
ing done by proxy and by poison, and at the end is called by his nephew Giovanni 
(p. 142 ) a murderer. 

119 



you please ) b)^ the spirit of Beaumont and Fletcher and the dramatic 
romance ; few, even among villains, died now in a fashionable play, 
and bloodthirstiness in a hero ' was impossible ; and though revenge- 
plays ( and the Kydian circle ) had long been out of the fore-front of 
fashion — probably since Hamlet^- — they too, in the hands of so 
impressionable a poet as Webster, nmst succumb to the reigning influ- 
ence. Side by side with them, moreover, and for long, revenge had 
been treated with little conventionality, as in the Marlowesque Tragedy 
of Blood, or with none at all, as in Othello.'^ And as for the last 
cause, Webster himself was enough to kill the old convention. Not 
that he would have done so while it was yet in its heyday : the style 
of his later period — that of the DeviV s Laiv-Case and the Cure for a 
Cuckold'^ — proves Webster was not, anymore than Shakspere, aloof 
from the influences and tastes of his time. But he was not like Hey- 
wood a caterer to them ; and his was too skeptical and clearsighted a 
mind to try to revamp so crude and false a convention as the religious- 
ness of revenge. 

The Supernaturai,. 

Along with the Kydian convention of the religious nature of revenge 
went, as having no further office, the Kydian ghosts and portents. 
The forms remain, but applied to a new purpose, in keeping with 
Webster's skeptical attitude and the more artistic spirit of his melo- 
dramatic art. They contribute to the tragic atmosphere. The ghosts 
are neither of the old sort, real and lively as flesh and blood, which 
appeared to the revenger and started the revenge a-going, hectored 
their relicts at night about it, and gloated over it when done ; nor of 
the subjective, Shaksperean sort, which appeared only to the murderer 
himself, as a retribution, an embodiment of conscience and disordered 
imagination.' One ghost, indeed, that of Isabella, is in so far like 

• That is, semiiue bloodthirstiness. See Chap. IV, for B. & F.'s pretences and 
hoaxes. 

" I.e., .Shak.'s. — Unfashionable, for after Ham. there is no revenge-play by an 
important author till Web. The fashionable B. & F. wrote none. 

' lago's revengre for Othello's familiarity with his wife, and for the slight of pro- 
moting Cassio above him. 

* See above, pp. 37-8, and below, Chap. IV. 

■ " As in Rich. Ill, V, 3, before the battle ; J. Cccs., IV, 3, Cssar's ghost to Brutus ; 
Mac. Banquo's ghost. In all these cases the ghost appears to his murderer ( in the 
revenge-play never), and is hardly to be considered objective. Those in Rich. Ill 
speak, it is true, but only in a dream ; and, as for Cjesar's ghost, he, too, comes 
when the lights burn dim, and speaks barely what Plutarch reports. The ghost in 
Ham., belonging to the Kydian tradition, is, on the contrary, purely objective. — Of 
ghosts as mere omens there are none in Shak. ; —nothing remotely like it but the 
spectacular " vision " in Hen. VIII, IV, 2. 82 f, and there there are no ghosts. See 
below. 

120 



the Shaksperean, that it is doubted by the beholder, ' and passes for an 
hallucination, the effect of " meditation " and "melancholy." The 
other, hov/ever, is unmistakably objective, an omen, a poetic use of the 
popular superstition of the fatefulness of the appearance of ghosts, but, 
like the first, without any notion of retribution.- Both have none of 
the old hard realism. They are no longer dramatis personge. They 
do not speak ; they are seen by no second party ; they appear in 
solemn, lonely places, and have not to stand fire or blows, or to do 
odd jobs of stage-work such as Andrugio's when he closes the curtains 
of Maria's bed, or to run errands like the Umbra of the Friar. ^ They 
are kept aloof, unreal, intangible, enough to serve for atmosphere, to 
suggest supernatural distance and majesty without ajar. They are no 
dramatis per son 86, but — ghosts and Echo* alike — a vague, environ- 
ing influence, and an atmosphere of fate. So, too, with Webster's 
omens ; they lack the prodigiousness and the downrightness of such 
signs as the comet, or the fiery sky, or God's voice in thunder. ■' They 
are such more natural occurrences as the nose-bleed and the drowning 
of the letters of one's name in blood, " the owls cry, " the laurel with- 
ering, ' the hair tangling, " the premonitory Echo, * " dying men's men- 
tion of one's name, ' ' unreasoning aversions to a sinister figure, ^ ^ and 
dreams, ' ''■ all of which, unlike the portents, and like his own abundant 
presentiments, depend for their force more upon the context and the 

' Francisco's explanation, 11^. D., p. 79. 

' /r. />., p. 129. The first ghost appears to the revenger ; the second appears to his 
tool-villain. The .Shaksperean notion of retribution, Nemesis, in the mere appear- 
ance of the ghosts, so prominent in Banqno's visitation and (in less degree) in 
Caesar's, is not to be found in the whole Kydian tradition. Up to Web. the Kydians 
have no mind to psychology or symbols. 

' In Bussy, p. 172 f. Cf. the management and interpretation of the plot in Bussy's 
Rev. by the Umbra of Bussy, Act V. 

* That the Echo ( MaL, V, 3 ) takes exactly the place of Brachianos' ghost ( IV. D., 
V, 1, p. 128 ) is shown : 1. By the same foreshowing of the penson's fate to whom 
they address themselves. 2. By the exactly similar position — at the close, just 
before the catastrophe. 3. By the same effect on the person himself, — defiance of his 
fate and rushing into it, IV. D., p. 129, Mai., p. 272. Indeed, the stage-direction ( in 
the oldest copies ) from the Duchess' grave, and Antonio's remark and the Echo's 
reply — " 'Tis very like my wife's voice," "Ay, wife's voice" — would give us to 
understand that the Echo is but the ghost of the Duchess. This ghost, then, is a 
parallel of Brachiano's — a friendly, warning ghost, an omen of death, not the retrib- 
utive ghost of Shak. 

' See note on Tour, above, p. 111. 

" Mai., II., 3, 11. 42-6, in Samp., who alone has the true reading. Cf. his note. 

' A/a/., p. 190, . "//'.£>., pp. 116, 117. 

' lb., p. 228. " -See Antonio's instinctive fear of Bosola, II, 3. 

* /*., p. 207. » " Mai., 22S. 
" lb., pp. 270, 271. 

121 



varying mood of the characters, are often, indeed, called in question, ' 
are not insistently unanil)i,i^uons, not, like Tnurneur's, too unambig- 
uous for art. 

Now equally unambiguous in Tourneur (less in Marston) is the con- 
nection between portent (or presentiment) anrl the particular event it 
foreshadows ; it comes pat on the minute, and its effect is rather to 
startle and astound, than to awe with a hint or dim intimation of a 
distant, aj^proaching fate. Web.ster's omens, on the other hand, 
singly hardly noticeable, are repeated and multiplied, and placed far 
from the events they point to, so as to ca.st their shadow throughout 
the drama. So they, too, contribute to the tragic atmosphere, and 
are of constructive value in that they impart to the play unity of tone. 
Particularly so is Webster's subtle faculty of arousing in the hero 
early in the play, by the accumulation of dulnous omens and presenti- 
ments, ' a vague dread, as if he felt fate brooding and weighing on him 
from the beginning. - 

Tiij'; ToRTURi.; vScif.NK. 
The torture scene, too, is treated in a new way, in a similar spirit of 
subtler art. Mar.ston and Tourneur had .sought tragic effect by the 
direct and crude means of the revenger's menaces and taunts, the 
tortures applied, and the sheer agonies of the victims, and (Tourneur 
at least) also by stage effects. This, of course, is not tragic, but revolt- 
ing ; and in the IV/iite Devil ' even Webster has something of it. In 
Malfi, ' however, Webster depends for effect, above all, upon the 
utterances of the victim — the Duche.ss's intense, imaginative .speeches, 
as of a soul in Tartarus,— and upon the ironical, searching medi- 
tations and "unanswerable questions" of Rosola. Yet the more 
material and physical .side is by no means neglected : rather, the 
tortures are increased, and the physical horror heightened ; but this 
is done far more ingeniou.sly, and made to appeal, while still phy.sical, 
to the imagination. As in Tourneur, the .scene is laid in darkness and 
loneliness "' ; but in.stead of the poi.son in the old duke's veins and the 
knife at his throat and deadlj- taunts in his ear, there are the figures 
of the duchess's murdered children before her, the madmen's songs, 
the coffin which .she herself shall fill, her tomb-maker, the horror of 

' .See Mai., pp. 18<5, 190, 191, 192. 

' See p. 1,%. As in Antonio (Mai., II, 3'), who has the iiosc-hlec<], finds two letters 
of his name drowned in blood, and fears blankly before he has an object ; the 
Duchess's and Cariola's fears and forebodings, pp. 172, 178, esp. p. 211, where, after 
the startlinK visit, the knock of liosola rouses ureal dread, though the tra«:ic occur- 
rences are yet lonu in coniinK- 

' V, I, pp. 117-119. * The torture-sc, Kn'. Tr., 394-7. 

* Act IV, practically. 

122 



her waitinjj-niaid's cries, Bosola's "whispering,"' her own dirge 
sung out to her before her death. These give the spectator something 
to think about, as the%' come one after another — they reach beyond the 
senses to the imagination. And even at the point where Webster is 
nearest to Mar.ston and Tourneur, — where Vendice's victim kisses the 
lips of the woman who turns out a painted, poisoned skull, and 
Antonio uncovers to Piero, as the cates he had ordered, Julio's 
limbs, and the Duchess receives in the darkness the hand which 
seems her husband's and turns out a severed one, - —into the dead 
chill of the horrible common to all these .situations Webster, in his 
case, has contrived to infuse a little more tragic, less brutal effect than 
the others. 

vStyle. 

The same is true of st\-le. Webster's, like Marston's and Tour- 
neur's, serves melodramatic ends, the ends of gloom and horror; but 
theirs works by direct appeal, WeV).ster's deviously. Theirs, compared 
to his, is not highly figurative ; they deal with revolting and harrow- 
ing notions, phrased as vividly and reali-stically as pcssible, at first 
hand, or by metaphor and brief sijnile. Webster's is nothing if not 
imaginative ; he, too, deals with revolting things, ' but preferably 
from the decent distance of imagination, by similes subtle and elabo- 
rate. And even their metaphors and similes harrow and startle, have 
little beaut}- ; Webster's metaphors, and above all his similes, touch 
one lightly, like real art. vSo Webster's imagery isi fit to make a tragic 
atmosphere. Mournful, wild, uncanny, yet subdued, subtle, pictur- 
esque, it serves, whether scattered through the play or accumulated 
in dreams, fables, mad-scenes,' vivid descriptions of scenes on the 
stage, '' or dirges, to allay the crudities of the Kydian Convention and 
make it plausible. 

Generally, however, his style is more meditative than dramatic, and 
it is something new in the drama. The conden.sed, concise utterance, 
the figures so abundant and so curiously and elaborately wrought, the 
moral ' sentences ' and apothegms of a new sort sown up and down 
the play, and, more especially, the fables," are undramatic in effect. 



' Mai.. IV. 2, p. 245. = Mai., p. 232. 

' Like them, with corruption and flecay, with human anatomy, with disea.ses and 
medical notions — ague, tetter, lupus, etc., but, of course, less with stinks, filth. 
niaKKots, etc. Yet see Mai.. ISO, 181, etc. 

* Vittoria's celebrated dream, p. 24, with its splendid imatrery, the Duchess's dream, 
p. 225. The fables, a peculiarity of Web.'s reflective art, are numerous. Mai.. 210, 
IXi.ll'): W^. /)., 44, 90, 123, 124. The mad-scenes: Cornelias (twice), Brachiano's, 
Ferdinand's ("twice), the madmen at the torture of the Duchess. 

^ See below, pp. 127-8. 

' Fables were used by the epic poet. Chapman. See below. Rarely by others. 

123 



are borrowed, in fact, from the technique of contemporary prose and 
non-dramatic poetry. The conciseness of expression, and the imagery 
are modelled upon Donne, the fables are after the fashion of those in 
Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and the ' sentences ' and apothegms 
are, many of them, taken bodily from Donne, Bacon, vSidney, ' and 
probably others. Now of this Marston and Tourneur had none : they 
made i)lays first of all, not poetry ; they flung them off with a free, 
large hand ; and their work reads still with a lilt. Webster's, on the 
contrary, reads, as it was done, slowly and hard. His style is, for 
dramatic dialogue, surcharged ; or it is abrupt, uncontinuous, like a 
mosaic of precious stones as compared to a picture in oils ; or it sub- 
serves purely reflective interest, as in the fables, instead of dramatic. 
In short, it is the .style of the literary arti.st — like Donne — in the day 
when impubse is spent, and high, .severe notions of style prevail ; and 
it is the style of a mind as much elegiac and gnomic in bent as 
dramatic. 

Charactkrization. 
In characterization Webster follows, in his waj', the Kydian 
tradition. Marston and Tourneur treat character, as I have said, 
" humorou.sly " ; not in the Jon.sonian .style at all, yet as conven- 
tional types, loosely enough marked and distinguished, ticketed 
with Italian names, and kept to one definite place in the drama- 
turgic mechanism, such as that of malcontent, malcontent's butt, 
villain, tool-villain, or the like. It is this part they play that is 
the character : per.sonality and hvimanity, consistency in morals or 
psychology, motivation, even, have little to do with it. Malevole and 
Vendice the malcontent meditators, Spurio and Supervacuo the baboon- 
ish princes, Bilioso and Ca.struccio ^ the cuckoldy asses, are mere parts, 
roles, not in any sense characters. 

This explains Webster's treatment of I'lamineo and Bosola. They 
are not characters at all, but direct descendants of Malevole and Ven- 
dice ; and like them they represent two ' incongruous, incompatible 
roles, — malcontent dnd tool-villain. As with these, now one role is 
uppermo.st, now the other, now villain, now morali-st, without any 
ethical or p.sychological coherence between the two, without even an 
effort for such coherence in the shape of a contention of motives. 

For, motives they, as conventional figures, have none. As tool- 
villains it is their part, for all their fine ideas, implicitly to obey their 



' For the borrowiiiK.s from ,Sid. and Bacon .see Mr. Crawford '.s article, cited aliove, 
p. 89. The other matters there is no space here to disctiss. See Pref. 
* In Mai.: the rest in To\ir. and Mars. 
■'' M. and V. each represent /hire parts — also the revenKcr. 

124 



master ; as malcontents, to meditate gloomily and rail and flout : they 
are but cog-wheels in the machinery. Malevole, like the others, 
speaks of himself as the malcontent, as if there were no help ' ; the 
"humor," or professional role, of Vendice,^ of Bosola, ' and of 
Flamineo ■* is discussed as a definite and known thing, but with never 
a hint at the cause of this condition of mind or at its human bearings. 
There is no personal grief latent in Malevole's, or Flamineo's, or 
Bosola's meditations, nor do these come to any head or purpose ; they 
are merely observations on life in general kept to one note and key, 
of which he is tlie mouth-piece, and are nowise actuated by motives 
or made alive with personality as are K<lmund's, for example, in King 
Lear.^ They themselves are not men, but malcontents and tool- 
villains, just as they might have been prologues or epilogues. 

Yet in Bosola Webster tried, perhaps, to connect the two alien roles, 
to intimate by Bosola's scruples — once at hiring out to Ferdinand and 
once in the middle of his work,*' — and by his later repentance and 

' Male. pp. 210, 211, 218, 220, 261. The malcontent i.s, of course, only a feigrned part 
in Malevole; but this, like all Marston's and Tourneur's feigned parts, or parts in 
disgui.se, is repre.sented really as genuine. Altofronto, Duke of Oenoa, has no char- 
acter at all except as Malevole, the Malcontent ; and throughout the play we forget 
that he is anything else. The .same is true of Vendice as malcontent or as tool- 
villain : he plays the parts he takes upon him thoroughly and absolutely, with no 
reserve of another, real nature (except, slightly, when tempting relatives). 
Another striking indication of the unreality, the mechanical " humorou.sness " of 
Marston'.s and Tourneur's characterization. The persons of their dramas take on 
new parts just as they put on the Marstonian disguise {v. p. 106, note 11), and are 
forthwith, inside as well as outside, new men. 

° Rev. Tr., pp. 40.3, 40.S-8, where Vendice's " humor " is discu.ssed and exhibited. 

* Mai., pp. 158, 160, ' this foul melancholy," " black malcontents " ; p. 182, " now, 
sir, in your contemplation," etc., " this out-of-fashion melancholy, leave it, leave 
it"; p. 180, " o1)serve my meditation now"; j). 169, "keep your old garb of melan- 
choly." 

* He is not, indeed, spoken of as having a "humor," but he himself makes his 
part as professional meditator conspicuous : addressing the audience and explaining 
to it, p. 91 ; addressing the audience with moral ob.sen-ations out of dramatic keep- 
ing, p. 136 (" O men," — and there are none on the stage); general ob.servations 
much to the detriment of dramatic propriety, p. 141, etc. 

* That the malcontent was a stock part long before Marston's play is made prob- 
able by Marston's own frequent u.se of the word without explanation as a known 
thing {Male, I, 1, 24); by "Marquess Malcontent" as nickname in Bussy''s Rev., 
p. 192. Cf. " wreathe your arms like a malcontent," T. C. V., II, 1, 20; " thou art 
the Mars of Malcontents," M. IV. IV., I, 3, 113, etc. Jaques is a malcontent; he 
explains self-consciou.sly enough the compo.sition of his melancholy — "a most 
humourous .sadness." — See p. , note, where the .set and " humorous " character of 
the speeches is further .shown. — That Marston's malcontent, Malevole, is not meant 
as a character, but as a " humor," ijs a sort of rare and admirable monster, is shown 
plainly by the first sc. (11. 1-70), where they fetch him out like a beast from the cage, 
and he, as the stage-direction indicates, " howles aaatu." '' Mai., pp. 235-6. 

•125 



vengeance, the contention of two natures within him. But that is 
mere plastering and patchwork. Only at these moments does Web- 
ster deal with the motives of Bosola ; and it w-ould take a more subtle 
network of them than even Robert Browning ever wove to bridge the 
gulf between Bosola the malcontent-meditator and Bosola the tool- 
villain, as engaged together in the torture-scene ' : — the one brooding 
and subtilizing, and calling the soul in the body a " lark in a cage," 
the other going roundly to his work of torture and slaughter with no 
more qualms or faltering than a vSultan's mute. Really, he is like the 
Messengers, the Prologues or Epilogues, or the person last on the stage 
at the end of the scene, who has to drag the bodies off, — a dramaturgic 
puppet, a fine sort of stage-property. Flamineo, on the other hand, 
Webster makes no such attempt to unify ; being, like the whole play 
of the IV/iite Devil, less immediately under the Marston-Tourneur 
influence, he needs it less. Yet he, as well as Bosola, Vendice, and 
the rest, is a "discontented gentleman " who has no way to live but 
by cutting throats by hire, and in the end is cheated -; he, too, gives up 



' In the tortuivsc. H. shrinks at iiotliiiiK. and wastes not a thou^rht upon his 
devilish work. In fact, he uocs into it, like Vendice at the teniptinR of his mother 
and sister, with a thoroughness far exceeding what is retiuired by fidelity to his 
master, just because melodramatic effect demands it. See Mai., pp. 243-5. And yet, 
after killiuKf the woman by inches, and her children and maid, and having hunted 
her down in the first place, all without the slijrhtest motive of passion —nothinR 
but the traditional " nold," thouuh he himself seems never to think of it, — after all 
that, comes the tender lanKuajje and tears of p. 251 ! With so mechanical and 
ready a villain, moreover, siich meditations as his do not fit. Such things as p. 242 : 

this world 
Is like her little turf of Rra.ss, and the heaven o 'er our heads, 
l,ike her looking Rlass, only Kives us a miserable knowledfte. 
Of the small comiiass of our pri.son. 

or p. 281, " O this Rloomy world ! " etc. These meditations, indeed, have a unity of 
tone in themselves — Hosola the meditator has a character ; — but Hosola the meditator 
and ISosola the tool-villain have little in common. 

- Symonds in Shak.'s Prcdeccssois (l/mdou, 1900, p. 393) first pointed out that 
I^azzarotto, as described in Jeronimo (I, 1, 113-119), is the precursor of Vendice and 
Bo.sola. This is the case only .so far as concerns the " discontented gentleman " and 
his workiuK for uold — two points not touched on in the characterization of Pedrin- 
srano in the Sp. Ti:, Strotzo in An/. Rn'., and lyorrick in Hoff., who are nevertheless 
dependants of exactly the .same function as I<azzarotto, and are cheated in the same 
way by their masters ; but reappcariuKr in Vendice {Rev. Tr., pp. 403, 407) ; in Bosola 
(Ma!., p. 158) where H. claims reward of the Card. ; 167, where Ferdinand hires him ; 
160, where the pity of his neglect is mentioned as likely to make him worse ; p. 249, 
where he is bilked by I'erd. ; and see above the references as to his melancholy 
(p. 125, note 3); and in I'lamineo {IV. D., p. 27, where he declares poverty to be the 
cause of his villainy, shows he had been a gentleman, etc.). Hut Plamineo, though 
" discontented," lacks the usual melancholy. The tools Ted., I,or., and .Strotzo, then, 
belouK toRether (esp. I'ed. and l<or. in their comic elementh and I<az., Ven., Bos., 

126 



his spare time to the part of meditator and malcontent. ' His medita- 
tions, it is true, are of a more flippant ^ tone, more in keeping with the 
part of stage-villain ; but he himself is, perhaps, even more of a 
puppet than Bosola. Motives or personal passions never appear : his 
murders never enter his meditations, and are done and over before we 
can catch breath '*; and though he has at the very last some twinges 
of conscience and touches of humanity such as Webster's ethical spirit 
would insist upon, ' even then he keeps up a running fire of comment 
at the audience, altogether undramatic and out of character, but 
within his professional role. These two fignires, then, for all the 
wisdom and poetry put into them, the greater harmony of tone 
brought about in them between their dual natures, remain, like their 
prototypes, unmotived, ununified. 

Inheriting, then, as a part of the Kydian tradition, a conventionar 
and "humorous" method of dealing with character, Webster, when 
not following it, is left to his own resources. Yet he finds methods, 
handseled by the preceding Kydian dramatists, or merely hinted at. 
by them, which are in keeping with his and their melodramatic art 
and bent for concrete phrasing. Symonds long since noted that his 
most characteristic way of presenting them is by many separate 
touches, which give features rather than the whole.' No one, I 
think, has observed, more narrowly, that this is done in at least two 
ways : first, by brief, vivid, and picturesque description of the outward 
appearance or facial expression of characters, or of action going on at 
the .same moment upon the stage ; and, secondly, by isolated, highly- 
charged, utterances of the character himself in moments of passion. 



and Flam. But the last three descend in more essential matters (as I have shown 
above in regard to Vendice) from Malevole : /'. e., as malcontent-critic, as revenjjer, 
as takinsr service by means of disKuise wjth his main enemy, and Flamineo, perhaps, 
as playintr pander to his .sister. — Both l'"lani. and Bos. are represented as poor 
scholars from Padua. This is in keeping with their character as malcontent and 
curious meditator; and is, perhaps, an attempt to make the r61e more human and 
plausible. 

' See W. D.. 91, " It may appear," etc. (to the audience^ and his comments at 
unrea.sonable times, cited above, W. D., pp. 136, 140, 141. 

" He inherits the gruesome gaiety and loo.se cynicism of Malevole and Vendice. 
There is less of this in Bcsola — none of the Marstonian liveliness, fri,skiness, and 
impudent familiarity. 

^ Sec p. 108, the killing of Marcello without a nK)inent's wait, yet not in a l)urst 
of anger; and that of Camillo, p. 48, spoken of bi him once before the deed and 
never after. 

■* The "maze of conscience," the "something called compa.ssion," etc., the 
" infinite vexation of man's own thoughts " ; but they belong to the brilliant medi- 
tator, not to the callous cutthroat. 

' Mer. ed. of Webster and Tourneur, in trod. 

127 



Tilt' picUireHC|ue description of persons, which is imitated and devel- 
oped from Marston, is discussed further on ; of the descriptions of 
scenes — an amplilication of tlic foniier tliere is a fine example in 
Mal/i. 

I'fs. Maik I'liiici- l''cr(liii;ni(l : 

A very .snlaiti;iii(li:r livi-s in 's f.vf, 

To mock Die ciincr violcnct'of fin-. 

Sil. Tliat Caiiliiial liath made iiiorc had faces with his oi)i)rcssion than ever 

Micliael Anv.cli) niadc vrood ones: lie lifts up 's nose like a foul poipoise before a 

storm. 

/•V5. The I,()r<l I'erdinand laiiRlis. 

Delia. I.ike a deadly canon 

That lightens ere it smokes. 

Pes. These are your true i)an>rs of death, 

The panjfs of life, that struk'tfle with k'reat statesmen. 

Delia. In sneh a deformed silence, witclies whisper their chai ins.' A/al., Ill, ,^. 

There is no analysis, observe ; rather, the method is i)ictorial ; and 
by it Webster contrives to j^ive such a picture of the characters of the 
Cardinal and Duke I'V-rdinand as our pre-rai)haelite novelists, Pater and 
Hewlett, i)aint, al.so without analysis, with their .subtly di.scriminated 
descriptions of gestures, tones of voice, lines and shades of color in 
the face, and ])oise of body. The second method works from the 
inside rather tliaii the oiitsidi', i)ut u.naiii only for nujinents : 

Cover her lace ; mine e.\es dazzle : she died jounK. Mai ., p. 248. 

Tis welcome ! Mai., p. 208. 

1 would have my ruin 

11<- sudden. A^a/., p. 228. 

I 11 have lliee hew'd in piece.'^. Mai., p. 261. 

If tli<\ wo\dd hind me to that lifeless tnnik. 

And let me freeze to death. Mai., p. 233. 

I am Duchess of Malli still. Mai., \y. 242. 

Now what you please: 
What death? Afal. p. 244. 

And t'ven this method is concn-te. I low su^jjestive of poise, gesture, 
and toiii' ! Ivich pas.sa^e is a vij.;iu'tlc of a dramatic insUmt. 

Human Natukk and Moramty in Ciiakactkrization. 
The greatest contribution of Webster to characterization, however, 
is a stern, true moral sense. From the beginning it was an evil in 
the Kydian drama that it rested on a convention at variance with 
morality, a revengeful, bloodthirsty hero ; but the bloodthirstiness and 
nmrderousness of the ollurv\ise blameless Hieronimo was forerunner 

' There arc no other contemporaneous descriptions of lonn scenes, hut these of 
.short ones : Mai., p. 238, and .see helow, pp. 13')-.S. 

128 



to far more unseemly breaches between art and morals. Tourneur 
represents his hero Vendice, — partly, no doubt, as a result of the 
" humorous " and mechanical method of characterization, — as a most 
revolting villain and hypocrite : as living on close terms with his 
Maker and fired with a hatred of sin, yet as interested in the most 
morbid matters, engaged in the most scandalous undertakings, and 
inclined to the vilest of merriment, with never a pang or a scru])le to 
hinder. A mechanical combination of the incompatible, and in them- 
selves sufficiently unpleasant, individuals — malcontent, revenger, and 
tool-villain, — he is too chaotic to be either a character or a moral 
entity. Up and <lown his plays, moreover, Tourneur scatters a great 
quantity of puerile anrl revolting casuistry at large. Now this is not 
true of Tourneur alone. This same combination in a hero of specious 
piety C or noble pretences) with the most shameful conduct, anil this 
casui.stry at large, appear, too fthough, as we have seen, in less revolt- 
ing form),- in Mar.ston, ami, in spite/ of all his parade of piety, in 
Chapman . ' 

Webster, on the other hand, sweeps this false i)iets- and sophistry — 
this fungus growth of hypocritical corruption, which had sprung uj) 
and clustered about the unnatural and bloody convention of Kyd — 
quite away ''■ ; and his heroes and villains are what they are. Hy this 
clearing-up he is put into a position as a dramatist really to deal jus- 
tice. Of justice, of nemesis in a true .sense, there is none, and could 



' I'or Vendice's hyi)ocrilical familiarity with Heaven see kni. Tr., pp. 357, .^6H, ,372, 
376, .■?92. 411, 42B-9, and ante: for l'"aumis's noble pretences see Fawn, p|>. 13.?-4, and 
158-9. — Vendice glozes over his teniptintf of his mother and sister, and the .////. Tr. 
is full of casuistry and sophistry on the iiart of D'Amville, Snuffe, and I.evidnlcia, 
pp. 261, 311, .S20, etc. 

Mars, has still more casnistry, and much like Tour.'s, on " Custom " and "Nature " 
in the I). C. pp. 20, 21, 25, 27, 39, 73, 89 ; Sophon.. p. 255. Chap, presents Tauiyra in 
Hussy with evident sympathy, and yet at the moment she seems to he disconraKinif , 
and really is enconra>{in»r, Hussy's adulterous proposals, she reminds him of " (>ne 
that wakes above, whose eye no sleep can bind, who .sees through doors," etc, (11,1, 
p. 153). Quite similar is the I'riar, Tamyra's tender, .solicitous confessor and 
Bussy's true friend, who really is no better than a bawd, even after he is become an 
Umbra. I.ike the I-'riar, Bussy's brother Cleremont is saturated with sajce Scnccan 
morals, and seems far above all liunian passion ; yet has no very becomint<^ relation 
to the Countess of Cambray (Hits. Rev., IV, 1 ). Of casuistry and sophistry Chap- 
man ha.s no end ; — defences of trea.son, of foreswearing, of IJarthcjIomevv's ICvc, of 
treachery, etc. (Vol. Plays, pp. 219, 227, 190, 199), and (what resembles the Mars.-Tour. 
.sort) of lust (p. 1.54). These authors, to be sure, are not the oriKinators of all this. 
Chap.'s commixture of piety and adultery (like Marston's impervious disjfuises) is 
to be found in the old romances (as that of Tristram and Isolt) and the novelle. 

' Except in his attempt to plaster over the cleft in Uosola's character, as MaL, pp. 
168-9, " O, that to avoid inifratitude ... I must do all the ill man can invent," 
etc., and in the inappropriate tears and emotions, pp. 235, 251. 



129 



Ill- I10IU-, ill llu' ii'voii,m."-i)lays of IVIarstoii ami Toiiriieur, of Kyd, of 
Cheltk', ami ol Ohapniaii, ' since Ihcv have within thetn no moral 
onlt-r and ilini l our sympathy or jutljjnicnt in no consistent manner. 
There, heroes ami vilhiins alike suffer or die for no perceivable trajjic 
fault, and they themselves are far frt)m recognizing any. vSuffer and 
die they generally do, and deserve it ; hut by a .slip or through caprice, 
in.stead of by neces.sity, and for melodramatic effect. Web.ster, how- 
ever, is stern and clear of mind, and is able (es]>ecially in Malfi) to 
hold our sympatliies — foi all our shrinking — to the retribution he 
pours down upon both villains and lieroes. Some killing he has still 
for plot's .^ake, and some for blooil's .sake alone -' ; but most of his 
victims have themselves to acknowledge,^ at the last, that they have 
pulled their fate down upon their own heads. 

What Webster did for the heroes he did for the villains — substi- 
tuted humanity and morality again for a religious, or rather mytholog- 
ical, ' convention. He took away from the Machiavellian villain — the 
type of Hero, Lussurio.so, ^ ami D'Amville- his athei.sm, his diabolic 
boasting and exultation, his large-letter program of poison, craft, and 
.slaughter, knowing that man is not at all so frank and crude a creat- 
ure ; and though he does not by a consistent and thorough motivation 
make him vital as h)dmund or Macbeth, he models him nevertheless 

' Think uf r>iiss.\ . tlit- I'ri.ir. .iml Tamvra ilciuaniHuK' 0"r .sympathy in their enter- 
prise ; or, un the otliei hand, of !Montsvur.\ anil Mou.sieiir. the .scoundrels, in theirs. 
And there is the same cliaos of morals in the late AVr. //<>«.. — in the presentment of 
AbiUinalit and Caropia, the di.sKnstitiK adxdterons hero and heroine. In Ifoj^'.. the 
hero is an nnmitiuated monster. In A'n-. Tt.. the hero. Vetidice. and his l>rother 
earn every penny of their wases of death. Hut why, according to the dramatist? 
The new dnke says, because they niight murder him: Vendice says, for blabbing 
(4ol-2): at all eveiUs, they die, for all their detestable career, conscience-clear! In 
Ant. A«T., the gnestioiiable hero. Antotiio, receives no retribution whatever. 

' I5o.sola"s killing of the .servant in the last sc. to keep him frvmi bringing help. 
And for blood's .sake, the strangliiig of the childreii and Cariola in .\ct IV. the 
killing of Mareello in If. IK 

^ lio.solrt, I'evdinanil. the Cardinal, b'lamineo actuaUv ilo .so: the rest, generally, 
should do -SO. either for their crin\es or for their rashness and irre.sohilion, the last 
being the fault of the Duche.ss and Atitonio. 

^ The KUiiabethan Machiavellian — poi.soner and hypiicrite. lover of evil and 
implacable hater of c'.oil and all gixxi. who Iwtsts of his exploits — is> sort of incar- 
nate devil, a creation of popular mythoptvic fancy. 

* For I'iero's atheisn*. see above. I'or his ci>nventional Machiavellian exultation 
In evil and craft. Ant. AVt .. pp. UH. 11*6." is 't not n»re?" : l.M, 1,^6," laugh Strotzo. 
laugh,"— D'.Vmvilles atheism, of course, fxifsim. llis ciMuentional exultation in 
evil : his and Uorachio's merriujent and laughter over the death of his bn.>ther. 
p. 277. ~ I.,ussuriaso's atheism and exultation in evil. pp. 35S. 37.^ — " cozen her of all 
grace," " hast thou beguiled her of salvation ? " This general unmitigatetl and 
revolting villainy, and his Machiavellian principle, p. 40.v v f using men as "nails 
to drive out ^>ne another." 

130 



more .ifter their oripfinal — human nature. His are villains who have 
better moments, when they ' feel the strange thinj^ called com- 
passion," or start back at the beauty of a murdered sister's face ; or 
who are subtle and adroit like Vittoria and the Cardinal ; or proud, 
triumphant in blood, like Lodovico andBosola'-; all of them being 
more or less poeticallj' treated, with a sense of the artistic aspects of 
the villain, and no lonj»^er painted diabolical and cunning- in the black- 
and-red of a pedlar's print. And though his villains are still atheistical, 
they are so, not in the old Machiavellian sense of hatred and enmity 
toward Ood, but in our modern, liroader one of skepticism or spirit- 
ual darkness. The Cardinal, on the one hand, is read}' to die for good 
and all and ne'er be thought of, and Vittoria, on the other, cries out in 
blank fear amid the storm of death. ' 

The same service of humanizing, finally, is done the malcontent's 
meditations. These have, indeed (though less marked), the old 
"humorous," professional rather than dramatic, character, ' the old 
main theme of 'all is alike aiul all is vanitv,' the old cjmical preoccu- 
pation with corruption and decay, and more than the old brilliant 
phrasing and striking imagery. But the high-flying is gone — the 
haughty, hypocritical piety and railing and indignation. The mal- 
content no longer looks on men as on grasshoppers ])efore him, but 
numbers himself among them ; and, leaving the old cocksure heights 
of censure, he has come down into the mystery and pathos, the para- 
doxes and irony, of human inquiry and endeavor.'' For, skeptical 
Webster is through and through" ; l)ut his cynicism, arising out of 

' Kl.nmiueo's words, //'. D., p. 128. 

" Both " Rlory " at tlio end, //'. D.. p. 142, Mai., p. 2S0. 

' Bosola's, the Cardiiiars, Klamineo's, Vittoria's, Julia's, last words all convey the 
notion of despair and blindness : I'lam.'s " a lon^r silence," " in a mist," pp. 138, 140, 
141 ; Vittoria's " I know not whither," p. 140 ; Julia's " I go, I know not whither," 
p. 267 ; Cardinal's " let nie 15c laid by and ne'er be thouRht of," p. 281 ; Uosola's "in a 
mist," etc., " mine is rtnti///«- voyage, " p. 281 ; Flam.'s " the maze of conscience, " 
p. 128; " while we look up to heaven, we confound knowledge with knowledge," 
p. 141; Bosola's words to the Cardinal, p. 280, "a kind of nothing." Cf. even in 
D. L. C, p. 70, lycnora's last words as she falls in a swoon, 

I,et me sink where neither man 
Nor memory may ever find me. 

and Romelio's, p. 118: ".Stay, I do not well know whither I am going." 

* See below, p. 133, note. 

' Reserved for future discussion, in conn, with Donne. /'. Pref. 

" See above, note 3. See Bo.sola's most pregnant ob.servations, as IV, 2, pp. 241-2, 
" the heaven o'er our heads only gives us a mi.serable knowledge of the small 
compass of our prison"; the frequency of parado.v, and of the figure " mist " as 
applied to life. See ref. above, and Ma!., 244, "a general mist of error," " mist," 
U\.A.& v., 184. 

131 



skepticism, is of a far humaiier and sincerer sort than that which, like 
Marston's and Tourneur's, arises out of a dogmatic, hypocritical spirit. 
Gone, too, are the erotic themes, the filthiness and prurience, so 
common in these : dignity and moral cleanliness, indeed, are as con- 
spicuous a contribution as the more sympathetic human tone. 

V. WEBSTER'S DEBT TO PARTICULAR REVENGE 

DRAMATISTS. 

Of those playwrights we have been considering, none influenced 

Webster discernibly but Marston, Tourneur, and Chapman. Marston, 

above all ; on his style, as Dyce long ago remarked, our author seems 

to have formed his own . ^ 

To Marston. 
That Webster was well acquainted with the text of Marston is proved 
by the familiaritj' with the 3Ialconient evinced by him in his Induc- 
tion ^ to that play (the play which, as we have seen, influenced both 
Tourneur and Webster most), and by various borrowings of phrase 
scattered through the revenge plays. Of these I bring forward only 
the more probable ^ : 



• Introd. to ed. of Webster, 1830. 

" There are allusions to the jests, the "bitterness" of the plaj-. Anyhow, it is 
unthinkable that Webster should not have both heard and read the play proper. 

* The less certain ones I give below : 

a. Fear in this kind, my lord, doth sweeten love. Insat. Countess, III, 2, 8. 
I,ove mixt with fear is sweetest. iMal., Ill, 2, p. 207. 

b. The galley-slave, that all the toilsome day 

Tugs at his oar against the stubborn wave. Male, III, 1, 162-3. 

I am acquainted with sad misery. 

As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar, Mai., IV, 2, p. 237. 

c. Fer. Who dost think to be the best linguist of our age ? 

Mai. Phew ! the devil. Male, I. 1, 69, 70. 

To hide his cloven foot. I '11 dispute with him ; 

He 's a rare linguist. ^V. D., V, 1, p. 115. 

d. Through rotten 'st dung best plants both sprout and live ; 

By blood vines grow. Soph., II, 3, 35-6. 

As in cold countries husbandmen plant vines, 

And with warm blood manure them. IV. D., Ill, 2, p. 62. 

e. And as you see a snow-ball being roll'd. 
At first a handful, yet, long bowl'd about. 
Insensibly acquires a mighty globe, — 

So his cold grief, etc. Soph., V, 4, 13-16. 

Ay, ay, your good heart gathers like a snow-ball. 

Now your affection 's cold. IV. D., IV, 2, p. 89. 

This imagery (in e) is in Marston's and Webster's day unusual; yet, like most of 
the Elizabethan imagery, it, too, may have been common property, (d) and (c) 
are probably adages, yet W. may have drawn them from M. 

132 



Fie on this satiety ! — 'tis a dull, blunt, weary, and drowsy passion. 

Fa7i'n,l\, 1, 106-7. 

whereas satiety is a blunt, weary, and drowsy passion. ll\ D., I, 2, p. 15. 

ride at the ring till the fin of his eyes look as blue as the welkin. 

Male, I, 1, 102-3. 

The fins of her eyelids look most teeming blue. Mai., II, 1, p. 181. 

These, together with a joke borrowed from the Fazvn for Malfi, ^ are 
proofs clear and conclusive. 

But it is influence that is at issue. In the meditations of the mal- 
content, first of all, especially Bosola's, Webster follows Marston and 
not Tourneur. They have a brooding mourn fulness which has little 
to do with the business in hand, like Malevole's, with the same theme 
of all is alike and all is at last vanity and corruption (only the very 
last of which is prominent in Tourneur), - and have none of Tourneur's 
prurience, or his ghastly gaiety, or his fanciful dwelling on points. 
Indeed, it is a peculiarit}' which distinguishes them from Hamlet's 
also, not only that they do not dwell on particularities like the skeleton 
or lip, or the hour twelve, or the like, but also that they are almost 
without dramatic connection or occasion, are couched in general or 
universal terms, are, in short, nothing but the set speeches of a 
malcontent's " humor. "^ Compare the following passages. 

Say you were lineally descended from King Pepin, or he himself, what of this? 
Search the heads of the greatest rivers in the world, you shall find them but bubbles 
of water. -Some would think the souls of princes were brought forth by some more 
weighty cause than those of meaner persons : they are deceived, there 's the same 
hand to them ; the like passions sway them ; the same reason that makes a vicar to 
go to law for a tithe-pig, and undo his neighbours, makes them spoil a whole province 
and batter down goodly cities with the cannon. Mai., II, 1, pp. 182-3. * 



^ Fawn, II, 1. 39-42, and Mai., II, 1, p. 1S5. 

' In the Ath. Tr., 307-8, indeed, appear more of theother qualities, but the passage 
is imitated from Ham. 

' Bosola's meditations are delivered in great wads, complete in themselves and 
separable, instead of being broken, and connected with the main current of speech 
in the scene ; and their separable, as well as professional and " humorous," character 
is further indicated by the prefatory phrase, " Think this" {Male, IV, 2, 141) — 
" Obsei~i<e viy meditation now," {Mai., 180). Cf. Romelio, who as \'illain and medi- 
tator corresponds, even in comedy, to the malcontents, Bosola and Flamineo: 
{D.L.C., 47), "I have a certain meditation. I'll say it to you." Whereupon he 
says it. It is these and the rest of Bosola's speculations that make Mr. Gosse in his 
essay on Web. {Seventeenth Cent. Stud., 1883) ask, " Did the clerk of St. Andrews, 
Holbom, talk so among his contemporaries, and mystify them, we wonder?" 
betraying himself a naive ignorance of tlie import of literary convention. Shall we 
wonder whetlier Marlowe in his private walk ranted like Tamburlaine, or Shakspere 
like Titus Andronicus ? * Quoted, however, from Vaughan's ed., as prose. 

133 



But in our own flesh, thouch we bear diseases, 

Which have their true names only ta'en from beasts, 

As the most ulcerous wolf and swinish measle, 

ThouRh we are eaten up of lice and worms. 

And thoutrh continually we bear about us 

A rotten and dead body, we deliKht 

To hide it in rich tissue, etc. Mai., II, 1, p. 181. 

with those cited from the Malcontent on page 108. They have the 
same theme, and in style they resemble those, not Tourneur's.' 

The same may be said of Webster's stjde and imagery. Though in 
this regard it is Tourneur that resembles Marston most, and though 
he .stands between Marston and Webster in point of time, still Webster 
owes more to Marston than to anybody else, and must have drawn 
directly from him. lie has not Marston's daring and energy, or his 
boisterousness and flippancy, or his filth ; he has not his metaphors, 
per.sonifications, or apostrophes ; he has not his outlandish figures 
of antistrophe, reiteration, and the like, and his far-fetched, absurd 
vocabulary, — all of which, at one time or another, Tourneur drew from 
Marston before him. For Webster evidently came into contact with 
Marston in his later and meeker period,'' that of the Malcontent and 
the Faivn ; and (what is more to the point) he himself brought into 
play a more reflective, artistic, spirit. Consequently he imitated him, 
not in his Ijoisterousness and extravagance, but in his calmer and more 
classic qualities ; not in metaphor, apostrophe, and personification, but 
in the colder simile. And that not the more old-fashioned Virgilian 
simile, either, such as, especially under old-world influences and Chap- 
man's example,^ Marston parades in Sophonisba ; but the shorter 
simile, cast in prose rather than in verse, highly original and inven- 
tive, concrete and picturesque, applied to the description of persons * : 



' of the same stripe exactly are Francisco's meditations, II'. D., pp. 102, 103, 
"what difference is between the Duke and I? no more than between two bricks, 
all made of one clay," etc. The " humorous," professional theme, the same as Male- 
vole's above, p. 108. Fran., indeed, in the quality of malcontent (even to the herald- 
ing of his humor before his entrance, IV. D., 99; cf. Male. Mai., Rev. Tr.), and of 
revenger in disguise, appearing at the revels at the close of the play, is a distinct 
reminiscence of Malevole or Vendice. 

' Tour, was influenced also by Marston's earliest work, his Satires. 

^ There is no question that Chap, influenced Soph., that this is not Marston's own 
style. Space does not permit of anything but an enumeration of a few points : the 
conjuring, pp. 292-4 (IJullen, Vol. II), as proved by the (i\iotation from Bussy on 
p. 292 (cf. footnote) ; the very Chapman-like ghost whose function is prophecy ; the 
Nuntius; the false maid-.servant Zanthia, just like Pero u\ Bussy ; the convenient 
vault, — the sign-manual, one might say, of Chap, (though it goes back as far as to 
Tancred and Gismunda); epic similes ; long speeches, few broken ones. 

* See above, p. 128. 

134 



He is made like a tiltingr staff ; and looks 

For all the world like an o'er-roasted pig : 

A great tobacco-taker too, that 's flat ; 

For his eyes look as if they had been hung 

In the smoke of his nose. A. & M., I, 1, 123-7. 

When thou dost girn, thy rusty face doth look 

Ivike the head of a roasted rabbit. Ant. Rev.. \, 2,11 ,!?>. 

She has three hairs on her scalp and four teeth in her head ; a brow wrinkled and 
puckered like old parchment half burnt — . . . Her breasts hang like cobwebs. 

Fmvn, IV, 1, 537. 
She were an excellent lady, but that her face peeleth like lluscovy glass. 

Male, I, 3, 42-3. 
The red upon the white showed as if her cheeks should have been served in for 
two dishes of bar-berries in stewed broth, and the flesh to them a woodcock. 

Male, III, 1, 143-6. 
Of the same stamp are Webster's : 

He carries his face in 's ruff, as I have seen a serving-man carry glasses in a cypress 
hatband, monstrous steady, for fear of breaking ; he looks like the claw of a black- 
bird, first salted, and then broiled in a candle. IV. D., Ill, 2, p. 53. 

I,ook, his eye 's bloodshed, like a needle a chirurgeon stitcheth a wound with. 

W. D., II. 1, p. 42. 
Mark her, I prithee, she simpers like the suds 
A collier hath been wash'd in. W. D., V, 1, p. 122. 

. . . when he wears white satin, one would take him by his black muzzle to be 
no other creature than a maggot. W. D., I, 2, p. 20. 

... he shewed like a pewter candlestick fashioned like a man in armour, holding 
a tilting staff in his hand, little bigger than a candle of twelve i' th' pound. 

IV. D., Ill, 2, p. 53. 
And whereas before she looked like a nutmeg-grater. 
After she resembled an abortive hedge-hog. Mai., II, 1, p. 180. 

Pes. The I,ord Ferdinand laughs. 

"Del. Ivike a deadly cannon, 

That lightens ere it smokes. ^ral., III, 3, p. 221. 

I do not think but sorrow makes her look 

Like to an oft-dy'd garment. Afal., V, 2, p. 260. 

In both cases, observe, the imagery is brand-new, ingenious, and 
striking ; not, as is so commonly the case in even the better Elizabethan 
plays, the old metal recast, but evidently virgin ore ; imagery, more- 
over, decidedl}' pictorial in effect, and serving the same function of 
satiric description. 

Again, Webster has many little tricks of the art from Marston. 
Some are to be found also in other dramatists : — as addresses to the 
audience, Latin for threats and dark sayings, the plot-device of a lost 
paper that betrays the secret,' remarks about "tragedy," and Stoic 



* Antonio's paper containing the horoscope of the infant, which is found by 
Bosola, Mai., 11, 3; almost as crude a device as Antonio's note found by Piero, 
A. & M., IV, 2. 

135 



maxims. Others are almost unmistakably derived from him: — the 
placing of the bodies of Antonio and his children behind a traverse, 
imitated, as a means of torture, from Piero's exhibition of Feliche's 
body ^ ; the omen of the nose-bleed, ^ and P^orobosco as name for a 
character, repeated irom Antonio^ s Revenge ; the use of omens gen- 
erally, and the art of inspiring by means of them a vague dread. This 
last matter is important. In Tourneur, as we have seen, the foreshadow- 
ings and omens are all portents; and in Chapman there are none. 
Thev must, then, be inherited by Webster, as the case of the nose-bleed 
indicates, directly from Marston. Along with them, he derived the 
faculty for rousing in the hero (and audience) a vague feeling of dread 
bv the accumulation of presentiments, omens, and the terror of Nature 
and stage-setting, before it can j'et have an object. Much the same in 
this respect is the treatment of Antonio's feelings in Malfi, Act II, 
.scene 3, as that of Antonio's in Atitotiio^s Revenge, Act I, sc. 2. ^ 

Finallv, the satiric element in Webster was influenced by Marston. 
Satire proper, as distinguished from satiric characterization, has in 
Webster, as we have seen, much abated ; there is no railing at all, no 
satirical remarks even (except, as below, where an object of satire is 
on the stage ^), for all the old railing at large has lost its particular 
and pointed quality, and is shrunk and generalized into an object of 
meditation — to illustrate the paradox between the shows and realities 
of life.'' Satire there is, however, in the part of the malcontent in 



' Mai., IV, 1, p. 232, and Ant. Rev., I, 2, 195 f. In both it is introduced suddenly 
and as a terrible surprise. — Mars., I suppose, is here W.'s dramatic model ; but W.'s 
source is rather the Arcadia. .See above, p. 91. 

° Ma/., II, 3, p. 192, and An/. Rev., I, 2. 125. It must be rare as an omen. In my 
reading of Eliz. dram, lit., I have not found it elsewhere. 

^ In the omen of no.se-bleed and the accumulation of omens, the blank presenti- 
ment of unknown danger and evil, the effect of nature (the night in both cases, 
though, in Ant. Rev., in restrospect, for it is now dawn), the " silence and unmoved 
calm " in Ant. Rev., and the slight noises in the dead of night in Mai. (the woman's 
shriek, or " maybe 'twas the melancholy bird, Best friend of silence and of solitari- 
ness," or " else I dreamed "). Cf. end of Mai., II, 2. .See for same method, Mai., 
p. 211, where at the knock the Duchess ' feels as if a mine beneath my feet were 
ready to blow np.' — But in M. the evil forboded is never far off. V. snp. 

* As when Castruccio, the Old l,ady, or Malateste, is on the stage, in Mai. 

^ The skits and flings at court, great men, politicians, rascality, and affectation of 
all sorts, I mean, have lost in W.'s hands all their railins qualities, all the incisive 
or prurient detail they had in Tour., and are reduced to axioms, moral sentences, 
material for imagery. .See IV. D., 112, Fails you as oft as great men's needy friends ; 
W. D., 128, like some great men That only walk like .shadows up and down ; W. D., 
113, To .see what solitariness is about dying princes ; flatterers are but the shadows 
of princes' bodies, etc. : Mai., 245, hea%'en-gates are not so highly arched As princes' 
palaces ; Mai., 242, Thou art somg great woman sure, for riot Begins to sit on thy 
forehead; Mai. ,2\6, I would sooner swim to the Bermoothes on Two politicians' 

136 



connection with satiric characterization, the malcontent putting the 
asinine parasite or cuckold through his paces just as in Marston*. 
Bosola plays with the egregious fool and cuckold Castruccio, with- 
out his understanding it, and Flamineo does with just such another, 
Camillo, quite as Malevole does with still another, Bilioso. ^ And 
Bosola makes fun of a painted, affected Old L,ady, with less vigor, 
indeed, and with more brooding, but still after the general fashion of 
Malevole, Feliche, and Faunus with their victims.- Besides this, 
there is one instance of satiric characterization carried through — 
still like Marston — without the presence of malcontent or any critic : 
Castruccio, the arrant ass and unwitting cuckold (exactly the counter- 
part of Marston 's Bilioso, both at these points and in silliness, stu- 
pidity, and importance), playing before his lord, as does Bilioso, still 
another part, that of sycophant.^ — All this must be from Marston; 
for Tourneur has nothing of it, and Chapman nothing but the ass of 
a gentlemg,n-usher, such as Prepasso in the Blalcontent, a different 
type. * 

By the borrowing, then, of phrases and of details of dramatic device, 
by the imitation of meditation, of imagery, of dramatic device, of satire 
and satiric characterization, Webster's revenge plays, particularlj' 
Malfi,-' are indebted to Marston.** 



rotten bladders, tied Together with an intelligencer's heart string- Than depend, etc. 
Cf. further, W. D. : 26 funerals, 31 wretched, 49 great men, 73 great men, politician, 
97 great men, 106 ambassadors; Mai. : 175 great men, 183 princes, 203 princes', 215 
princes, 220 foxes, 168, 215, 218, 225, etc., etc. There are, of course, passages where 
something of the old satire appears, as in U\ D., 97, greatness; but generally this 
old satiric material is either used in aphorism or el.se turned into imagery to illus- 
trate Webster's favorite theme — the hollowness of the shows of life. This is all in 
keeping with Web.'s general meditative bent, his fondness for fables, etc. 

1 Mai.. II, 1 ; W. D., I, 2 ; and for Bilioso, Male. I, 1, 255 f ; IV, 2, 107 f. There is 
no doubt that Castruccio and Camillo are formed on Bilioso. They all have young 
wives. And see below. 

» Mai., II, 1 : cf. Fel. with Flavia, ^ . (5" 71/. , II, 1, esp. 1. 251 f; III, 2 ; Mai. with 
women, Male, II, 2; V, 2, etc. — The brooding is in Malevole's vein. V. supra. — 
Somewhat the same situation, Bosola with the "gentlemen of the woodyard." 
Mai., II, 2. 

^ Castruccio with Ferdinand, Mai., I, 2, pp. 161-3. —Bilioso is kept almost out of his 
lord's presence on the boards ; yet once (V, 3, end) he plays the part with him, and 
very often with others, as pp. 241, 288-9. 302-3, 308. The same trait is exploited 
abundantly in A.& M., as in Forobosco. 

* Prepasso is of this profession, but has no pronounced traits. — Bassiola in the 
Genlletiian Usher, Argus in Widow's Tears, all of the type of Shak.'s Malvolio, 
Olivia's vSteward. 

' The references to yi/ij/. in the above discussion sufficiently indicate this : Bosola's 
meditations ; Castruccio as cuckold, sycophant, and ass ; the madness in the torture- 
scene and Ferdinand's madness, more like Pandulfo's in Ant. Rev. than that in 
W. D., which imitates .Shak. {v. infra) ; the torture-scene, the properties of torture 

137 



To TOURNEUR. 

To Tourneur, Webster is far less indebted ; like pupils of one master 

generally, they themselves have much less in common. That he knew 

Tourneur's work is made probable by the echo in the White Devil 

from the AtheisV s Tragedy alread}' cited, ' and by an unsavory joke in 



(hand, counterfeits of bodies of husband and children, like Feliche's body), the 
omens and dread, .Stoicism (III, 2, p. 216 ; V, 3, p. 272), and the religious element in 
the Duchess (III, 5) and in the torture-scenes. 
* Two other points of contact, not so certain, which I relegate to fine print : 

a. A peculiar sort of abrupt, prancing dialogvie, which, by the way, appears often 
also in the baiting-scenes (see for them below, p. 141, note 2), is to be found in 
IV. D., 72 : 

Lod. Shalt thou and I join housekeeping ? 

Flam. Yes. Content: 
• l,et 's be unsociably sociable. 

Lod. Sit some three days together, and discourse ? 

Flavi. Only with making faces ; 

L,ie in our clothes. 

Lod. With faggots for our pillows. 

Flam. And be lousy, 

LMd. In taffeta linings, that 's genteel melancholy ; 

Sleep all daj'. 
' Flam. Yes: etc. — 
CI. A7it. Rev..\\.2,\9Zl: 

Stioizo. I '11 weep. 

Piero. Ay, ay, fall on thy face and cry, " why suffer you 

So lewd a slave as Strotzo is to breathe? " 

Stro. I ■'11 beg a strangling, grow importunate — 

Piero. As if thy life were loathsome to thee, etc. 

Stro. Applaud my agonies and penitence, etc., etc. 
See the .same trick in Fawn, II, 1, 470 f ; III 1, 57 f. Generally, the lively, abrupt, 
dialogue of the IV. D. .shows, I think, distinct traces of Marstoh's influence; but 
that is too detailed a matter to deal with here. 

b. The latter half of IV. Z)., p. 42 (" He 71.' ill shoot pills " to " scruples") , one would 
almost take, in my opinion, for Marston's. The joke about the Irish is altogether 
in his vein (it occurs, indeed, several times, as in Male, III, 1, 261), asW.'s few filthy 
jokes generally are ; and the portion, 

IvCt me embrace thee, toad, and love thee, O thou abominable, loathsome gargarism, 
that will fetch up lungs, lights, heart, and liver by scruples ; 

with its insistence upon revolting physical things, unrelieved by a touch of the 
imagination, is also like Mars. This tone of flippant familiarity with scamps and 
scoundrels is common in M.'s malcontent. See Male.. I, 1, 62 f : " And how does my 
* little Ferrard? Ah, ye lecherous animal ! my little ferret, he goes sucking," etc.; 
Male, II, 3, 172, "Ah, you treacherous, damnable monster, how dost? how dost, 
thou treacherous rogue ? L,et 's be once drunk together, and so invite a most 
virtuously-strengthened friendship," etc. ; Male., Ill, 1, 250, " Art there, old true- 
penny ? I see flattery in thine eyes and damnation in thy soul.- Ha, ye huge rascal," 
etc. This trick Tour, copies exactly (and it is an illustration of his greater nearness 
to Mars.), Rev. Tr.. 356, " how dost, sweet musk-cat? " 
* See p. 19, above. But see Addenda. 

138 



Malfi, possibl)' imitated from the Revenger'' s Tragedy ^ But of influ- 
ence unmistakably derived from it he shows almost none. It is rather 
historicall}', as to a link in the development of the type of the revenge- 
play, as we have seen it expounded through the ten years back from 
the White Devil to Marston's jMalcontent and Antonio's Revenge, 
that Webster can be sho^Ti to bear much relation to him . The gap 
between the half-emancipated White Devil, on the one hand, and the 
absolute revenge tragedy Antonio'' s Revenge and the revenge tragi- 
comedy The Malcontetit, on the other, Tourneur, so far as revenge- 
plays have descended to us, is the only one left to bridge - ; and he 
does bridge it, as we have seen, by taking up the Malevole type, by 
breaking down the revenge motive through extreme handling of it in 
his one play and inveighing against it by means of revenge-pla\- ma- 
chinery' in his other, by doing away with the old stereot^'ped revenge 
plot of Kyd, Chettle, and Marston, by introducing an erotic intrigue, 
and by developing further the melodramatic setting. But there may 
have been still other plaj-s, now lost, that did much the same thing, 
and influenced Webster more directly. True, there are points that 
suggest Webster's direct imitation of Tourneur. The poisoning and 
torture scene, with the poisoning of the face ; the taunting of the 
victim, the disclosure of the poisoner's own identity as an additional 
torment, and the endangering outcry of the victim ' ; Bosola's hiring 
out to his villain master and, -s^-ith like comment, receiving gold from 
him * ; the conflict suggested in Bosola between conscience and obedi- 
ence to his master ' ; and the condensed, pointed, sombre style and 
imagery ^ ; — all these ma\^ have been imitated from Tourneur, but 
possibh- from others. 



' Rev. Tr., 409, and Mai,. I, 2, p. 171. It is onlj' a chance. — The notion of binding 
a li\'ing to a dead bodj-, found in both Mars, and Tour, (see p. 110, note), appears also 
in Mai., IV, 1, p. 233. Drawn orig. (by Mars.) from the storj' of Mezentius, but very 
probably taken by T. and W. from Mars. 

' Excepting always the Male, comedy though it be. See above, p. 110. 

^ W. D., pp. 110, 116-19 ; Rev. Tr., 393-7. But the elements are all to be found else- 
where. In the Sec. Maid. Tr. the manner of poisoning is as like that in /f '. D. The 
disclosure of the torturer's identity is common — to be found in some form or other 
in all cases, as in Ant. Rev. (V, 2, 62 f). Sec. Maid. Tr. (V, 2. pp. 464-5^, as well as in 
the last act of Rev. Tr. (V, 3, p. 430), the second torture-scene. (Here again the out- 
crj'of the\4ctim, Rev. Tr., 429.) The Sec. Maid. Tr., as we have seen (pp. 117-18), ~ 
probably influenced the IV. D. in yet other respects. 

* Mai., I, 2, p. 167, and Rei\ Tr., I, 3, p. 357. — But (see above, p. 110) Malevole does 
the same. 

^ Rev. Tr., 374, 376 ; Mai., I, 2, pp. 168-9, and IV, 1, end. There is no resemblance 
except in the slight attempt to smooth over the contradictions of character, — an 
attempt in both cases unplausible and hypocritical enough. 

^ There is an increase of the imagery of decay in Tour, over Mars. 

139 



To Chapman. 

Still less does Webster owe Chapman ; for Chapman, being off the 
main line of development, has far less than Tourneur of what could 
have influenced him. Undoubtedly his work was known to Web- 
ster, for Chapman, alone of revenge-play writers, is mentioned in 
the long list of contemporaries in the preface to the White Devil — 
not only mentioned but especially praised ; and in the 3Ionumetital 
Column, of 1613, ^ he is mentioned again, and with reverence and 
tenderness. Yet, strange to say, though there is not a word about 
Marston and Tourneur, and only a passing mention of Shakspere, 
Dekker, and Heywood, - to all of whom Webster is manifestly indebted, 
to Chapman, whom he praised and loved, he is indebted least of all.^ 

Of borrowings in phrase or situation there is none at all probable * 
but one in Alphotisus Emperor of Germany, where the atrociojis 
Duke of Saxon, on dashing out his grandchild's brains when Prince 
Edward refuses to acknowledge it as his offspring, cries. 

There, murderer ! take his head and breathless limbs, 

There 's flesh enough, bury it in thy bowels, 

Eat that, or die for hunger ; Alph., IV, 3, p. 408. 

somewhat as yirginius cries to Appius on slaj'ing his own daughter, 

And if thy lust with this act be not fed, 

Bury her in thy bowels now she 's dead. A . & V., IV, 1, p. 201. 

Of influence, properly speaking, there are, probably, traces in the 
conjuring of the dumb-shows. In no other revenge plays than Bussy's 
Revenge and the White Devil does this appear; and in both these 
cases events occurring in one place are represented, by black-art, con- 
temporaneously in another.'' Further than this, nothing is certain. 



' Works, vol. Ill, p. 264. 

' See below on the indebtedness of Web. to Heywood's Luciece. See also his 
verses to H., and the entries from Henslowe (Chap. I) which prove he had worked 
■with him. 

' So, too, with Jonson, to whom, with Chap., is given the place of honor in the 
pref. to W. D., but whose influence I fail to find. See Prof. Wendell's assertion, 
p. 92, note. But Mr. Crawford (see above, pp. 89 ff) has found one unquestionable 
case of borrowing in the Mon. Col., Notes and Queries, x, vol. 2, pp. 381-2. 

i Other faint possibilities are: a, the joke, certainly old, a "matchless eye " — 
" true, her eyes be not matches," ^fay Day, 275, and A.& V., 172 ; b, Byron's Tr., 
p. 263b, and A. & I"., 190, the notion of the soldier's fear of the lawyer's gown; 
c, Byr. Tr., 245b, and Mai., 218, quilted anvil and politics; d, " that toad-pool that 
stands in thy complexion," Bussy, 161, and " the spring in his face is the engender- 
ing of toads," Mai., 164 (the same general conception as in Mer. of Ven., I, 1, 88-9). 

* Bussy, IV, 1, pp. 166-7 ; IV. D., Ill, 1, pp. 47-8. Web.'s resembles this rather than 
conjuring-scenes such ?iS2Hen.VI, 1, 4, in that this aims at revealing a contemporane- 
ous action. The same device appears (forming a part, however, of the very essence 

140 



What in the function of the ghosts as omens is common to both Web- 
ster and Chapman is no more than the popular superstition of their 
appearance to the fey. Tales are common in Chapman and fables 
are to be found, but both are to be found in others ^ ; and of baiting 
there is no end, but it is not of Webster's variety.^ 

Of revenge-plays, none, then, influenced Webster's but Marston's, 
Tourneur's, and (as we have already seen) the Second Maide7i^s 
Tragedy^ \ and Marston's influence, not only in his one revenge 
tragedy, Antonio, but also in his other work, is the predominant one.* 

of the fable, not being, as here, a sheer draniatnrgic device) in Greene's Bacon and 
Bungay (Dyce ed., 1861, p. 175), where Bacon lets two scholars see by means of his 
glass what their fathers are doing. But the fact that no other revenge-play has this 
element, together with Web.'s praise of Chap, in the pref. to this play, makes him 
the likelier source. Cf. above, p. 134, note, Marston's borrowing of this very thing 
from Chap, in Sophon. 

' Of short, illustrative tales, pp. 188, 189, 192, 193, 195, 197, 223, 247-8, 266, 376; 
and of fables: pp. 185, 189, 249. — Cf. Web.'s above, p. 123, note; And further, Mon. 
Col., p. 260, A. & v., 199, etc. The fable of the Belly and the Members is told in 
Coriolanus. It is likely, however, that Web. was influenced in this respect by Chap. 

' The baiting-scenes (as I call them) are scenes in which a character is rated or 
taunted soundly. They are characteristic of the W. D., — padding rarer in the more 
artistic Mai. Examples: Antouelli and Gasparo seem not unfriendly to Lodovico 
(I, 1), and yet their discussion of his life in his presence is couched in the terms of 
an onslaught ; the baiting of Brachiano (II, 1) by Monticelso and Francisco, esp. 
pp. 31 and 32, and of Isabella, p. 36 ; the baiting of Vittoria by the Cardinal and 
Francisco in the trial-scene (III, 2), esp. pp. 58-9, where the two vie with each other 
in hitting : Flamineo and I<odovico (III, 2, pp. 73-4) : Brachiano and Flamineo (IV, 1, 
p. 82) ; Marcello and Flamineo (IV, 4, p. 105) : the torture-scenes above all (V. 1, 
pp. 117-18, and V, 2, pp. 138-41). In these, or in isolated speeches like them, they try 
to stab with mere words ; as, p. 66, 

Brack. Now you and I are friends, sir, we '11 shake hands 
In a friend's grave together. ' 

— a hyena-like exultation over the murder of his wife, Francisco's sister ; or, p. 96, 

Dost tliou imagine, thou canst slide on blood, 

or the taunts of the Cardinal, III, 2. 

Chap.'s baiting is formal : a, A mutual set-to to see who can hit hardest, as 
pp. 161-2 (Monsieur and Bussy) ; b, A preconcerted abuse of one to try his " humor " 
of Senecan stoicism, pp. 182-3 (Monsieur and Clermont, see purpose avowed, foot of 
p. 181). And it inclines to long speeches, has not W.'s short, sharp phrases. On the 
whole, it seems quite as likely that W.'s baiting is derived from the taunts of Mars, 
ton's and Tourneur's torture-scenes. 

^ See above, p. 118, note. — For the influence of Hatn. on Cornelia's madness, see 
below. 

* The above discussions include all W.'s indebtedness to these authors, whether in 
the revenge-plays or not. The account of his relation to Shak., on the other hand, 
which follows, is limited to Web.'s revenge-plays. Further relations to him are 
pointed out in connection with A. & I'. Even with these added, however, my inves- 
tigation is incomplete : I have not read Shak. through with an eye to Web. 

141 



VI. THE INDEBTEDNESS OF WEBSTER IN HIS REVENGE 
PLAYS TO SHAKSPERE. 
Of another revenge-play, Hamlet, we have seen the influence, in 
the earlier development of the type, only in Marston and Chettle ; and 
that most certainly not the Hamlet of Shakspere, but of Kyd. Subse- 
quently, there is nothing to prove the direct influence of either Kyd's 
or Shakspere's Hamlet, up to the Atheist's Tragedy, which is influ- 
enced evidently by the latter. The Second Maiden's Tragedy, on the 
other hand, seems related to Hamlet in neither form ; and Webster, in 
his two plavs, shows no sign of the direct influence of Hamlet, except 
in so far as in his study of Shakspere's representation of madness he 
imitates, as well as the madness of Lear and that of Lady Macbeth, ^ 
that of Ophelia. A rather surprising result ! 

Madness. 
Of representations of madness in the White Devil and Malfi there 
are four : Cornelia's and Brachiano's madness in the one, and Ferdi- 
nand's madness and the Bedlam-let-loose of the torture-scene in the 
other. The last named is one of those purely episodic mad-scenes 
such as often appeared on the Elizabethan stage (as in the Hofiest 
Whore and Northward Ho"-), which, bringing forward as mad, 
characters which had not previously appeared, lacked all psychologi- 
cal and dramatic interest, and were interesting, even to Elizabethans, 
only for the extravagant grotesque of their utterance and demeanor. 
The first three, on the other hand, like Shakspere's and those of the 
best Elizabethans,^ depict the madness of characters already well 
known to us, and hark back to their former disposition, vocation, or 
experience, in a truly pathetic and terrible manner. In each of these 
representations reminiscences of Shakspere are manifest. Cornelia* 



' The sleep-walking may be classed as madness. 

° This may be a vestigre of the Dekker period : one of the few possible ones. 

^ Such as, in some measure, Hieronimo's in Jonson's Additions. 

* They are the following, (b) and (e) being already noted in Dyce : 

a. O you abuse me, you abuse me, you abuse me ! II''. D., p. 108. 
That is, in the sense of deceive, as in I,ear : 

Do not abuse me. Leai', IV, 7, 77. 

I am mightily abused. IV, 7, 53. 

b. Of the dead Marcello before her, just as Lear of Cordelia : 

Give me him as he is ; if lie be turned to earth, let me but give him one hearty kiss, 
and you shall put us both into one coffin. Fetch a looking-slass : see if his breath 
will ?iot stain it ; or pull out some feathers from my pillow, and lay them to his lips. 

W.D., pp. 108-9. 

142 



uses phrases belonging unmistakably to Lear, to Ophelia, and, in one 
case (perhaps), to Lady Macbeth; Brachiano and Ferdinand^ use 



I know when one is dead and when one lives : 

She 's dead as earth. Lend nie a looking-glass ; 

If that he7- breath will inist or stain the stone. 

Why, then she lives. 

T\\\s feather stirs ; she lives ! Lear, V, 3, 260-5. 

c. When I am dead and rotten. li^. D.,\l(>. 
he 's dead and rotten. Lear, V, 3, 285. 

d. Cowslip-water is good for the memory : 

Pray, buy me three ounces of 't. W. D., 127. 

Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination. 

Lear, IV, 6, 132. 
In all these cases the words are I,ear's own when mad. The similarity of situa- 
tion is what makes the echoes so unmistakable. 

e. From Ophelia's mad talk : 

There 's rosemary for you, and rue for you, [Tb Flamineo'\ 

Heart's-ease for you ; I pray make much of it, 

I have left more for myself. W. D., p. 126. 

There 's rosemary, that's for remembrance. . . . There 's fennel for you, and 
columbines : there 's rue for you ; and here 's some for me : we may call it herb-grace 
o' Sundays : O, you mvist wear your rue with a difference. Ham., IV, 5, 175 f. 

In which the play on "rue" as addressed by the mad woman to the guilty man 
present, is in both cases identical. 

/. And at exit : 

Bless you all, good people. IV. D., p. 128. 

And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye. Ham.. IV, 5, 200. 

g. here 's a white hand : 

Can blood so soon be wash'd out? W. D., 127. 

Possibly suggested by the words and conduct of I,ady Macbeth. 

Aside from this, there are the following passages (all noted by Dyce) probably 
from Shak., though (a) at least is proverbial : 

a. Forward lap-wing ! 

He flies with the shell on's head. W. D., p. 34, and Ham., V, 2, 193. 

b. Whose death God pardon ! 

Whose death God revenge. IV. D., 85, and Rich. ILL, I, 3, 136-7. 

c. Yet stay, heaven-gates are not so highly arched 

As princes' palaces : etc. Mai., 245, and Cymb., Ill, 3, 2 f. 

d. physicians thus 

With their hands full of money, use to give o'er 

Their patients. Mai., 224, and Ti^n. of Ath., Ill, 3, 11. 

' Here Web. does not so much borrow Shak.'s phrases as imitate the method of 
characterization and reproduce ideas. Yet there is the same " abuse " again : 

143 



phrases and notions of Lear's ; there is definite evidence, in short, 
that Webster copied the very situations, phrases, and turns of Shaks- 
pere's mad-scenes. But he emulates them, as well. Sometimes, 
indeed, as in the startlino- suddenness ' of Cornelia's ovitburst into 
lunacy, he follows (quite in keepintJf -wnth his own melodramatic 
neglect of motivation) a more primitive style, — that of Hieronimo in 
the enlarged Spauish Tragrih and of Pandulfo -^ in A)tto>iio's 
Revenge. But the madness of Ferdinand he developed more grad- 
ually ^ ; and, with a sense of ps^'chological fitness, he makes him, the 
man of fierce and fiery passions, — not the craftj' Cardinal — go mad. 
And he makes him, Brachiano, and even Cornelia, run upon long-past 
experiences connected with their main vocations, — monej^-raising, 
hvinting, the cares of government, ' the turmoil of battle, ^ on the one 
hand, or household affairs, on the other"; — makes the passion or 
crime at the root of their madness show itself — 
that perilous stuff 
■Which weiirhs upon the heart 



a. Away, you have abus'd me. JV. D., 114. 

b. Use me well, you were be.st. Mai., 257. 
Said as they lay hold of him, just as I<ear, in the same situation, says : 

Use me well : 
You shall have ransom. Lear, IV, 6, 195. 

c. Ferd.'s objection to his doctor's personal appearance, like l,ear's : 
I,et rae have his beard sawed ofT, and his eyebrows filed more civil. 

Mai., 258. 
You, sir, I entertain for one of my hundred ; only I do not like the fashion of 
your garments : you will say they are Persian attire ; but let them be changed. 

Lear. III. 6, 83. 

ii. I am studying the art of patience. Mai., 257. 

No, [ will be die pattern of all patience. Lear, III, 2, 37. 

Thou must be patient. Lear, lY, 6, 182. 

We must be patient : but I cannot choose but weep, etc. 

Hani., IV, 5, 69 (Ophelia). 

e. And Rrachiano harps upon coining, the oppression of the poor, and Ferdinand 
upon battle, flattery, and lechery, much as I.ear does. 

' See H\ D., 108. — As also in her notions that her son is not dead. 

' V. supra, p. 99, note. 

" As IV, 2. After seeing the duchess's face, — after the whirling words " Cover her 
face," etc., — " the wolf shall find her grave and scrape it up " : which precede the 
final, already distracted, words, " I '11 go hunt the badger by owl-light " (p. 250), and 
the full madness of Act V, sc. 2. 

* Brachiano, W. D., 115. 

" Ferd., Mai., 219. These all— hunting and hawking, battle and army life, cares 
of government and justice, — appear over and over again in I^ear's ravings. 

* IV. D., 126— This sheet I have kept this twenty year, etc. 

144 



with which Macbeth and his Lady were acquainted, — as in Hrachiano's 
ravings on his ac()nii)lice Fhuniiieo and the devil, ' and in I'erdinund's 
refusal to confess - ; and makes them ponder i)hilosoi)hical and general 
satirical themes, such as the hollow shows of life the^' had been used 
to — hypocrisy, flattery, and what is called justice. ' All this is char- 
acteristic of Lear, some of it of Lady Macl)etli, and of the mad folk of 
no other Elizabethan dramatist whose work remains to us. ' 

VIL DOUBTFUL INFLUENCES, I'OSvSIHLY vSIIAKSPIvRIvAN. 

BoYHOon. 
Another i)oint at which Webster may be indebted to vShakspere is the 
portrayal of the boy. Shakspere learned the art from JMarlowe, "' and 
ampliiied it ; Webster, in his Giovanni, follows in Shakspere's steps. 

* /f. D.. 115-16. 

* Mai., 257. — Ju.st us the murder breaks out iu L,ady Macbeth's speeches, aud the 
grief and reix-ntauce of I<ear at liis folly, iu his. 

' Urachiauo's raviuRs about Flaniiuco, inouey-baRS aud the KaijiuK' lawyer, aiul 
Vittoria's powderiuK, pp. 11,5-16; aud I''erdiuaud's ui)ou " flattcrj' aud lechery," p. 259, 
are like I^ear's upou the h.\i)ocrtsy aud hidden leehery of judvre, beadle, aud virtu- 
ous-.seeu)iuK lady, aud >ipon datter.N' aud injustice. Aud I.,, remembers his fault, as 
they their crimes. 

* Other points of Shak.'s influence are marked by Mr. Sampson (pp. xviii--\xi), 
none of which — except the two from Mac. {Mai., 190-1, 211), which, I suppo.se, occur 
to everybody, thouph without the best of reasons, — seems to me probable. Ho.soIa's 
echoiuK of Mercutio (instead of Malevole, v. sup. p. 137), Julia's of Brutus' Portia 
(instead of Sidney's Philoclea, v. p. 90, note 1), Antonio's of Ant. iu .Mcr. Vmi., etc., 
would deserve a moment's consideration only on the supposition that Shak. was 
the trreat, overshadowiuK influence of the day. //'. D., p. 9.S, however, contains a 
likely alhision to Othello. 

' That the Prince Rdward in Marlowe's Ed. II served Shak. as model for tlie 
Prince Edward iu 3 Hen. VI (.i. e., in revising Marlowe's play of the True Traaeiiif) 
and for the PriTice l<;dward in Rich. Ill (both plays beinsr el.sevvhere charged with 
Marlowe's spirit), is beyond doubt. The dates permit of it, for the True Traced ie, 
original oi 3 Hen. I'/, which contains the Rutland speeches all but oneJine, aud 
the Prince Kdward part substantially the .same, appeared iu 1595, and Rich. Ill in 
1597, while F.d. II was reg. July 6, 1 593. The Prince P'.d ward of Ed. II has the same fond 
affection aud reverence for father, mother, and \nicle, uttered (as also in these plays) 
in a far sturdier, less pathetic manner than that in 7V/. Aud. and A'. Johu. See I\', 2, 
21 f; V, 4. He has the same precocity and iucisiveness of judfrmeut aud advice as 
Prince Edward in 3 Hen. VI (.see IV, 2, 4-8 and 68 ; 5, 41 ; aud 3 Hcu. VI, II, 2, 78 f, 
131 f; III, 3, 78; 169, etc.); the same boldness and vows for the future, as IV, 2, 21-5. 
Aud though a little stouter iu his pleading with Mortimer and the Queen for Kent's 
life, he is not unlike Rutland iu J Hen. VI, and Arthur iu King: John, i)leadiug for 
their own. 

Whether ,Shak. was influenced also by other, popular traditions, as represented 
by the sources of A', y. aud Rich. Ill—ihv 'I'lvublesome Raianc, I'ts. I and 1 1, and 
Trdg. Rich. Ill: IVhetein is showue the death of Edivard thefouilh, 7cith the siiiolli- 
ering of the two yoong Princes, etc. ; or whether the.se too were drawn from Mar., I 
cannot say. Certain it is that though they present children in just the same sittia- 

145 



Both poets take the man's point of view, not at all the child's. The 
boy's ambitions, his eaj^erness to carry a pike and whip the French, 
they portray admirabh', because here the boy most approaches the man. 
And they fail with the boy's pathos and wit only because they, as men, 
stand aloof : remembering roughly that a boy is "cute " and tender, 
they make his wit pert and sophisticated, and his sentiment and pathos 
drooping and effeminate. No more striking contrast and inconsist- 
ency could be imagined than that between the burly assertiveness of 
Young Lucius and Giovanni when talking of fighting and revenge, 
and their self -con sciovis languor when uttering their affections or their 
longing for death. Here, they are boys through and through ; there, 
weak-eyed girls. 

All this appears, as we consider Webster's adoption of the Marlowe- 
vShaksperean convention piece by piece : 

1. Intrepidity, eagerness to fight the French or to revenge his own 
or his family's wrongs; the vows prefaced generally by an if I live, 
which, in the bloody early plays, is ironic : see White Devil, pp. 34 

and 3vS, especially. 

If I live 
I '11 charge the French foe in the very front 
Of all my troops, the foremost man. 

I say, my lord, that if I were a man, 

Their mother's bed-chamber should not be safe 

For these bad bondmen to the yoke of Rome. Tit. And., IV, 1, 107 f. 

Ay, uncle, .so will I, an if I live. Id.. IV, 1, 112. 

Ay, with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire. /6., IV, 1, 118. 

An if I live until I be a man, 

I '11 win our ancient right in France again. 

Or die a soldier, as I lived a king. /?tc/i. ///, III, 1, 91. 

Compare also the intrepidity of Macduff's son, Macbeth, IV, 2, and of 
Prince Edward in 3 Henry VI, passim ; the more childish stoutness 

of Young Marcius, 

' h shall not tread on me : 
I '11 nm awa>- till I am bigger, but then I '11 fight. Cor.. V, 3, 127-8. 

tions as vShak., they have left few traces — whether originally Marlowe's or not — on 
his characterization. Yet the.se few, wooden as they are, are objective, unmistak- 
able. Troub. Raigne: Shak. Libr.. Pt. II, Vol. I, p. 238, Arthur's pride in Eng. char- 
acter ; p. 249, wj.shes his Grandam would pull forth his heart (see below, p. 147 ) if 
that would 'appease the broyles ' ; p. 259, "For I am king of Eng., though thou 
weare the diadem." Trag. of Rich. ///, Shak. I,ibr., Pt. II, Vol. 1, p. 70, " Farewell 
good unckle, ah gods, if / do live my father's yeares as God forbid but I may, I will so 
roote out this malice," etc. — However we explain it, these all, and a touch of Prince 
Henry's impidsive revengefulness not reproduced by Shak. in A'. John KTioub. 
y?rt/i>«^, pp. 317-18, " Sweet Uncle . . . let not a stone of Swinsted Abbey stand ") are 
very like Marlowe in Ed. II and True Tragedie. 

146 



and of Mamilius in Winter's Tale, I, 2, 162 ; and the revengefulness 
of Clarence's children, Richard III, II, 2, 11-16. 

2. The interest of the boy in weapons and his begging for them : — 
a horse and armor of his uncle, White Devil, 29 ; a pike. White Devil, 
34. Compare York's begging dagger and sword of his uncle, Richard 
III, III, 1, 109 f. 

3. The boy's love for his mother, uncle (with whom he most often 
appears), and others who have charge of him, uttered, like his wish 
for death (see below), in a thin and plaintive pathos, and often with 
a self-conscious account of his feelings : 

Giov. My sweet mother 

Is — 

Fran. How? where? 

Giov. Is there ; no, yonder : indeed, sir, I '11 not tell you. 

For I shall make you weep . 

Fran. Is dead ? 

Giov. Do not blame me now, 

I did not tell you so. 



Giov. What do the dead do, uncle ? do they cat, 

Hear music, go a huntinu, and be merry. 

As we that live ? 

Fran. No, coz ; they sleep. 

Giov. lyord, lord that 1 were dead ! 

I have not slept these six nights. When do they wake ? 

Fran. When God shall please. 

Giov. Good God, let her sleep ever ! 

For I have known her wake an hundred nights. 

When all the pillow where she laid her head 

Was brine-wet with her tears. I am to complain to you, sir ; 

I 'U tell j'ou how they have used her now she 's dead : 

They wrapp'd her in a cruel fold of lead. 

And would not let me kiss her. W. D., 67-8. 

O this will make my mother die with grief. King John, III, 3, 5. 

Although, my lord, I know my noble aunt 

IjOves me as dear as e'er my mother did, 

And would not, but in fury, fright my youth. Tit. And., IV, 1, 22. 

O grandsire, grandsire ! even with all my heart 
Would I were dead, so you did live again ! 

lyOrd, I can not speak to him for weeping ; 

My tears will choke me, if I ope my mouth. lb., V, 3, 172 f. 

Compare also Arthur's love for Hubert, King John, IV, 1, and 
Ivucius's for his father and aunt. 
4. The boy's wish for death : 

I,ord, lord that I were dead ! 

1 have not slept these six nights. W. D., p. 68. 
O grandsire, grandsire ! even with all my heart 

Would I were dead, so you did live again ! Tit. And., V, 3, 172 f, 

147 



CkhuI iii.v mother, peace ! 
I would that I were low laid in in.\- jrrave : 
I mil not worth this coil that 's made for me. Kin£ John, II, 1, 163 f. 

5. Wit — jest and repartee — so knowing as almost to give the effect 
of cynicism : 

Frail. Ha ! Without their ransom I 

How then will yon reward yonr soldiers. 

That took those prisoners for you ? 

Giov. I '11 marry them to all the wealthy widows 

That fall that year. 

Fran. Why then, the next year foUowinc, 

You '11 have no men to so with yovi to war. 

Giov. Why then, I '11 press the women to the war, 

And tlien the men will follow. IV. D., p. 35. 

Son. Who must hanjr them ? 

/.. i1/rtf. Why, the honest men. 

Son. Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and 

swearers enow to heat the honest men and hang: up them. 

L. Afac. . . . But how wilt thou do for a father? 

Son. If he were dead, you 'Id weep for him : if you would not, it were 

a good sijrn that I should quickly have a new father. Mac, IV, 2, 52 f. 

Compare York in /^ic/i. Ill, II, 4, 26 f, and III, 1, 107 f. 

6. A common device is the use of / haiY heard or / have read to 
make plausible some opinion or piece of information beyond the child's 
years. See W. /?., pp. 34, 68; Tit. And., IV, 1, 18, 20. 

Webster's treatment of boyhood, then, is along the conventional 
lines of Shakspere, with the old contrast between stout ambition and 
revcngefulncss, and weak-kneed pathos and sentiment. But greater. 
In none of Shakspere's children is the pathos so long drawn-out and 
brooding, so self-conscious and indirect, as tliat of Giovanni's prattling 
about his mother and death. He points mutely to tlie earth, checks 
himself and points to heaven, to answer the question where his motlier 
is ; atul thinks he must do so, and say not a word, lest his uncle weep. 
And when asked whether he loved her, he makes such an answer as 

this : 

I have often heard her say she gBve me s\ick, 
And it should seem by that she dearly lov'd me, 
Since princes seldom do it. 

With this self-consciousness there is of course nuich beauty in single 
passages, as in 

1 '11 tell yo>i how they have us'd her now she "s dead : 
They wraiMH'd her in a cruel fold of lead. 
And would not let me kiss her. 

bvit, as a whole, the part is unnatural, more self-conscious than inno- 
cent, — a beautiful, sickly out-growth from the self-conscious innocence 
of Arthur and Lucius. 

148 



To whom is this later development due ? Either to Webster, or to 
Fletcher in Bonduca. Hengo, like Giovanni, only continues the 
Shaksperean tradition of pluck, of hatred of his country's enemies, ^ of 
desire for revenge of his father's wrongs,^ and of valiant vows for the 
future. ^ And in matters of sentiment, like Giovanni again, he exceeds 
it. He weeps copiously,'' wishes himself dead,"' and has a very un- 
childlike premonition of death's approach''; he dwells on his brother's 
death as Giovanni on his mother's,' and asks his uncle like pathetic 
questions about heaven, its inhabitants, and its occupations * ; and he 
expresses an affection for his uncle much more plaintive and profuse 
than that of Giovanni himself. ■' In short, for all his brave deeds and 
promises, Hengo is a quavering milk-sop, and, though a little more 
stagey, strikingly like Webster's bo}'. 

Now the probabilities are all for Fletcher. He and Beaumont are 
pioneers in so many forms of sentimentality (even at this period, as 
we shall see, Webster is their follower'"), and this sentiment and 
pathos are so like that of their ' pretty, sad talking ' ' ' boys, or girl- 
pages, Euphrasia ' - and Veramour, ' ■' that the case seems theirs on 
the spot. But the date forbids a judgment. Of it we know no more 
than the broad conclusion of Messrs. Fleay and Thorndike : Bonduca 
may be as early as 1611 or as late as 1616.'" ' If the earlier limit be 
the date, then, unhesitatingly, we may have Webster influenced by 
Fletcher. If not, we can do no more than conclude that Webster felt 
the atmosphere of that day of which Fletcher was the main exponent 
— the main factor, — an atmosphere of sentimentality and decadence. 

By the influence of Fletcher the supposition of Shakspere's influ- 
ence would be made unnecessary. Even without Fletcher it is unnec- 
essary : there may have been many plays, now lost, that cultivated the 
same Marlowe-Shaksperean tradition. But there rtr^? no such plays ; 



' Bon., 49 a. 62 b. " lb., 67 b and 62 b. 

" Ib.,nh. * Ib.,n\i. 

' /*..49a, 62b. ^ /A., 62b. 

* 16.. 68 a. » Bon.. 62 b, 72 a. 

* It appears in the irritating harping in falsetto on " uncle," " uncle " (pp. 62,71. 
72) ; in questions whether he shall see his uncle in heaven, etc. 

'<■ See below, p. 151. " See Philaster. p. 34, for the phrase. 

'^ /. e., disguised as the boy Bellario, in Phil, (dated c. 1608, Thorn.), who has a 
similar self-consciously innocent manner and affection for his master ; wishes for 
death (pp. 40, 43), considers, like Hengo, his life but a piece of childhood thrown 
away {Phil.. 45a; Bon.. 72a). See, too, the elaborate, sentimental description of B. 
by his master, p. 31. 

'^ In Hon. Man. Fori. (" plaide in the yeare 1613," Dyce Ms. copy), Veramour's 
devotion toward Montague, his master, has something of the same piping tone 
(pp. 489-90), and he ' thinks in conscience he shall die for him.' 

^* Thorndike, /;//. o/B. & F.. p. 91. 

149 



Heywoocl's (to cite one of the few who treat children at all) follow 
another fashion.' And to Shakspere, as we have seen, Webster 
at this time was looking as to a model. If he turned to him as the 
master-hand at madness, he might well turn to him as the master- 
hand at childhood. In default of Fletcher's, then, we may conclude 
Shakspere's influence to be probable. 

Thk Lyrical, Spectacular and Symbolical. 

Due possibly in some measure to Shakspere, but more probably to 
the atmosphere of the day, are some tendencies working in Webster 
in conjunction — tendencies lyrical, spectacular, and symbolical. The 
l3^rical and the spectacular had reached Webster, indeed, through the 
Second IMaideu's Traoniv {,a play which he must have known), but 
with results little similar. In the Second jl/ahfrn's Tragedy there are 
two songs of regret, the elaborate spectacle of the Lady's rising from 
the tomb, and the ceremony, at the en<l, of the crowning of her body 
in the presence of her ghost. In the White Devil there are the spec- 
tacles of the two ghosts, and a dirge ; and in Malfi, the ceremony of 
the Cardinal's investiture accompanied with song and music, the song 
and dance of the madmen, and a dirge. But there is no more to be 
made of it. 

There is a little more likeness, on the other hand, to Shakspere's 
romances. They show all of these tendencies, under the influence of 
the masque elements in the romances of Beaumont and Fletcher, - per- 
haps, or nierely of the masque itself. So far, indeed, as Webster 
shows anything of the masque, as in the anti-masque •' of madmen in 

' Hey. has two boys, one in the Late Lancashire Witches (date 1634). Works. IV, p. 
196f, who is nowise similar; and in 2 Ed. IV (pub. 1600, reg. Aug. 28, 1599), Princes 
Ed. and Rich., who appear in vol. I. pp. 147-9, 153-5. The sc. before the Tower is in 
evident imitation of the one in Kich. ///, but the characterization is milike. — 
Jonson and Dekker have no children ; 15. & V. none not mentioned here except 
Ascanio, in Sp. Cur., who is rather to be classed as a sentimental youth ; and Mass. 
has only ' pert pages. ' 

* Cf. Thorn., /«/. o/B. <5'F., pp. 130-2. 

* Ma!., IV, 2. — The antimasque, the comic, grotesciue foil to tlie stately masque, 
presented the lower clas.ses — country-men, milk-maids, savages, or the like, or 
monsters such as satyrs and monkeys ; antics, grimaces, and wild leaps instead 
of graceful dances ; and a dialogue lively and full of jests, instead of high and 
poetical. All this fits the masque of madmen in Web. Introduced to furnish 
"some sport," it contains a song, an outlandish dialogue, and a dance to music at 
the cTid. As here, song and prose together are found in the antimasques of Jonson's 
masques, Christmas, Acvs from the Ne-c II 'orld, and the Irish MasQue. — Soergel, in 
his Ens!- Maskensfiiete (Halle, 1SS2), fails to mention this in Ma/./i, at pp. 86-92, 
where he considers the occurrence of masques in the dramatists, incl. Web. — The 
antimasque is represented, as Thorn, points out in Inf. of B. <Sf P., in Triumph of 
Time by a troop of Indians, in Wint. Tale. IV, 4, by the dance of satyrs, in Tempest, 
III, 3, by strange shajies, etc. 

150 



Malfi, he is as near to Beaumont and Fletcher' as to Shakspere ; but 
(except in the matter of spectacles with music) not otherwise. He 
has nothing of the masque proper — its stately, decorous dances, its 
mytholog-ical, allegorical, or courtly personages, introduced for a 
show ; — and he has dirges, solemn symbolism, splendid pageants with 
music, somewhat like Shakspere's. 

Merely to show a general likeness, I repeat, not any indebtedness, 
let us consider these points for a moment. There were dirges in the 
old Kydian plays, as in the Spanish Tragedy and Antonio'' s Revenge, 
but in Latin (one of them), and ' said, not sung.' Since these, there 
are none till Webster ; and his 

Call the robin red-breast and the wren 
and (in less measure) 

Hark, now everything is still 
are no longer in any sense hoarse and Senecan, but things of clear 
imagination and lyric sweetness, itiore like the dirges in Cynibeline 
and the Tcvifyest ' than anything else, and shedding, like them, a 
pensive atmosphere through the play. Again, the ghost in the 
Kydian plays was, as we have seen, a hard, material thing. But 
Brachiano's silent ghost, bearing a lily-pot and skull in one hand and 
casting dirt on Flamineo with the other, is attenuated and subdued 
into a symbol, an allegory of death ; and in this character it approaches 
the allegorical Vision of Queen Katharine. So, too, in Malfi, with the 
"noble ceremony " the pilgrims at Ancona linger to behold, where, in 
dumb-show, the Cardinal lays a.side his vestments, girds himself for 
war, and banishes his sister, to the ditty of the churchmen. It is such 
a combination of song and elaborate spectacle as is not to be found in 
any previous revenge-play, but to be paralleled in the Two Noble 
Kinsmen and Henry VIII. ^ Here, then, as often in the course of our 
investigation, Webster, though not in the forefront of fashion, does 
not scorn to follow in its wake. 



' There is no evidence that Web. drew any of his masciue elements from B. & !<'. 
The Question whether in this Period he was otherwise influenced by them depends 
on the settlement of the matter (broached above, p. 118, note) of the dates of //yw. 
Man. Fort., Sec. Maid. Tr., and IV. D. I myself am of the opinion, moreover, that 
the construction of Ma}fi shows B. & F. influence: a, first two scenes of Malfi 
{one sc. in Vaughan's text) infl. by the first sc. of the immensely popular Fliil., 
where Antonio and Uelio describe and discuss the characters as they come on the 
stage and while they act upon it, as do Dion and his friends : b, the rather com- 
plicated and quickly-moving last scenes seem to show the influence of B. &. I'. 
Contrast IV. D. 

* Cf., too, the song ' Come away, come away, death,' T. N., II, 4. 

^ .See the elaborate ceremonies and pageants prescribed by the stage-directions in 
Hen. VIII; and the combination of song, music, and spectacle in T. N. K., I, 1, 
and I, 5. 

151 



VIII. THE PERIOD AS A WHOLE. 

When we hear Webster's name, it is the White Devil and Malfi 
that we think of; and not without reason. In his first period — in 
Jlj'af/ and the citizen comedies — Webster is, if anything, a sheer 
mimic of Dekker. In his last period he is no very stalwart student 
and imitator of Fletcher and Massinger. Only in his middle period 
does he rise above his models and his mediocritj', and get on his feet 
and use his own voice. It is but natural, then, that with the world at 
large these two gloomy, terrible tragedies should stand for the man. 

But when we go farther, and conceive of Webster as if the author 
only of these, as the 'terrible Webster' of Dyce, as the clerk of St. 
Andrews, Holborn, of Mr. Gosse, 'talking like Bosola among his con- 
temporaries, and mystifying them,' as the haunter of church3^ards 
and charnel houses of a score of essayists and belletristic triflers, 
we go sadly astray. We have to remember that this cannot be if 
the Cure for a Cuckold and Appius atid Virginia are yet to follow. 
Above all have we to remember that at almost every point in the art 
of his two great tragedies Webster is dominated by the art and thought 
qi his da}-. The revenge tragedy in its essential make-up — motives, 
dramatic and scenic machinery, tvpes of character, prevailing tone of 
gloom and horror — comes to him, as we have seen, straight from 
Marston, Tourneur, and the Second I\Taiden''s Tragedy. And even 
many of those finer elements, which seem to be Webster's original 
contribution, his more human and poetic treatment of revenge, mad- 
ness, and villains, and, as must some day be shown, his skepticism, 
his turn for paradox, and the quality of his melancholy and of his 
imagery, are by no means his unique possession. There is hardly a 
spot in these plays where we can lay our finger, and say, with assur- 
ance, This is W^ebster. 

Yet he is here. An intangible element — Webster's subtle and 
powerful spirit in the background — distinguishes this Period from 
either of the others as creative and original. The work bears a like- 
ness to this and to that ; but it is a new product, and often a finer one. 
It carries his own stamp ; it is not stereot\'ped like his later work, 
nor counterfeit like the earlier. The material (and even the fashions 
. in which it is moulded) might be borrowed : but the fire of the imag- 
ination which fused the harsh and stubborn stuff of the traditional 
revenge-play and transmuted it to poetry, could not be. Whatever 
Webster's indebtedness in this Period (and it is great, we have seen), 
far greater and richer was his benefaction — that sternness of morals, 
that breadth and sadness of intellectual candor, and all the various 
humanity there is in true poetry, in sublimity, pathos, irony, sombre 
beauty of image and phrase. 

152 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Fletcherian and Eclectic Period. 

The remaining dramas are not to be classified so neatly and pre- 
cisely as the preceding. They show distinct traces of four or more 
influences — at least those of Fletcher and Massinger, of Marlowe, of 
Shakspere, and of Heywood, — and each of them two or more of the 
four. We therefore gather all these plays into one chapter, — discuss 
first their sources, then the influences in order, then the character- 
istics of this Period as a whole in the light of the preceding Period. 

I. THE SOURCES. 

The Devil's Law-Case. 

The source of that part of the fable which deals with Romelio's 

beneficent revenge is undoubtedly to be found in Goulart's Histoires 

Admirables, Geneve, tome i, p. 251, whether of the edition of 1610 

or 1620. 1 

Un certain Italien ayant eu querelle coutre quelque autre, tomba malade si grie- 
fuement, qu'on n'y attendoit plus de vie. Son ennemi sachant cela vient au logris : 
s'enquiert du seruiteur & lui demande, ou est ton maistre ? I,e seruiteur respond, 
il est aux traits de la mort, & ne passera pasce jour. 1,'autre grondant 3. basse voix, 
replique, il mourra par mes mains. Quoy dit, il entre en la chambre du malade, lui 
donne quelque coups de poignard, et se sauue. On adoube les playes de ce pauvre 
malade, qui par le moj-en d'une si extraordinaire saign^e reuint en convalescence. 
Ainsi recouura-il sant6 et vie par les mains de celui qui ne demandoit que sa 
mort. — R. Solenander au 5 liur de ses conseils Quinziesme cons, neufiesme sect. 

The ph)'^sician, Reinerus Solenander,^ whom Goulart here cites, he 
does no more than freely translate. Valerius Maximus, ^ as Langbaine 



' Langbaine, ed. 1691 : " An accident like that of Romelio's stabbing Contarino 
... is (if I mistake not) in Skenkius his observations : At least I am sure, the like 
happened to Pherseus Jason, as you may see in V. Maximus, lib. I, cap. 8. The like 
story is related in Goulart's Histoires Admirables, I, p, 178." — The paging in Gou- 
lart seems to be uniform in all editions, and consequently editors and critics have 
hitherto tried hard to make the story on p. 178 (which will never do) fit. Dyce 
thought Lang, hardly worth quoting ; Haz. searched Goulart for another in vain. 
The 1702 ed. of Lang, reads p. 27, which does no better. — In Skenkius's {i.e., 
Schenkius) 05j^>-r/. A/^rft'ca^, the three oldest editions in the Brit. Mus., I have not 
been able to find it. 

' Consil. Med., Hanov., 1609, sect, v, cons. 15, cap. ix. 

* Ed. Kempf., Lips., 1888, lib. i, cap. viii, extr. 6. 

153 



points out, tells the same story, though in a simpler form. But Web- 
ster's source was Goulart. For that he was acquainted with the Gene- 
vese theologian's collection so far back as in the day of JMalfi is proved 
by the passage on the loup-garou,^ cited by Dyce. It is unlikely, 
moreover, that a story to be found in one of the great collections of 
novelle in a vulgar tongue, should reach an Elizabethan play-wright 
through the Latin, from an obscure writer on medicine or the old 
Roman epitoniist.'- 

Another part of the fable — the deviVs lazi'-casc — is a problem not so 
easy to solve. A similar stor\' appears in Dekker, Houghton, and 
Day's Lust's Dominion,^ in the Spanish Curate,* and in the Fair 
Maid of an Inn.^ The first, because both of the likeness of its story 
and of the convenience of its date, must be taken to be the source. 

In Lust's Dominion there are these points of contact. A widow 
revenges upon her son injuries done the man she loves by spreading 
abroad a report that he, though her own son, is a bastard. By this 
she hopes to injure his fame and deprive him of his inheritance. On 
the pretense of scruples of conscience she goes into a public assembly 
to avow it, " giving all the particulars of proof in the most shameless 
wa}', and naming the father. All this is pure invention, and is denied 
by the father named." 



' Mai., V. 2. Djxe's note in Vaufrhan's Mai., p. 152. It is indubitable ; 

And he howled fearfully : 
Said he was a wolf, only the difference 
Was, a wolf's skin was hairy on the outside. 
His on the inside. 

II asseura fennement qu'il estoit loup et Qui'il n'y auoit autre difference si 
non que les loiips ordinairenient estoyent veins dehors et lui I'estoit entre cuir 
et chair. 

Prof. Sampson has foiuid (.at the Brit. Mus., doubtless) an Eng. Goulart, by E. 
Grimeston, I^on., 1607, which may have served Web. here, as well as above for the 
source of the D. L. C. 

' Mr. Ward (III, 61) calls attention to a similar story in Fletcher's Wife for a 
Month (lie. May 27, 1624). Poison, said to be furnished by a Jew physician, works 
a cure (IV, 1, and Y, 1). But the story, quite apart from matters of date, could not 
have been AVeb.'s source. 

' Pub. 1657, but see below, p. 156. * I^ic. 1622 ; see below. 

• Wc. 1626, Jan. 22. Both it and Sp. Cur. were first published in the 1647 folio 
of B. & F. — Mr. Swinbunie, in an essay on Web. in Nineteenth Cent., June, 1886, 
p. 864, obse^^'es tliat the plot of D. L. C. is derived from the F. M. /. He surely 
means only the devil's la7t'-case proper; — further than this there is nothing except 
the proper name, Prospero (the only other instance of it I know out of the Tentfiest) ; 
and we show below, p. 155, that even that cannot be. 

• L. D., IV. 4, and IV, 5. 

' L. D., V, 1. — She avows it in public repeatedly. 

154 



In the Spanish Curate the situation itself is not so like, but there is 
an actual court-scene. Lord Henrique, in order to keep his estate from 
his younger brother, Jamie, resolves to acknowledge an heir, who, 
as he himself admits, will shame him, — a son by a woman with whom 
he had lived long since, but whom he had deserted for his present 
wife. So far, there is no close likeness. But there is, as in Webster, 
a trial to which the victim is summoned in ignorance of the question 
at issue ; in which the scheme of Henrique, kept like Leonora's from 
the audience till now, is unfolded, and the client justified, on the 
score of conscience, by the greedy, pettifogging, pompous lawyer in 
his harangue. Yet, as the plaintiff is a brother instead of mother, and 
avows what is true instead of what is false, and has no motive of 
thwarted love inciting him to revenge, there is nothing notable here 
for Webster to borrow except the combination of shameless intrigue 
with a law-suit. 

The Fair Maid of the Inn has, so far as outward details are con- 
cerned, a more similar story. A mother has her son summoned, in all 
ignorance of the cause, to trial, in order to prove (to her shame, as she 
admits) his birth mistaken, and so disinherit him. But her motive is 
to save her son's life, not to revenge herself on him ; her shame is for 
deceiving her husband, not for any infidelity to him ; and in the trial 
there is no lawyer. 

The presumption is strong that at this time, when not only Webster 
but the whole Jacobean stage was imitating Fletcher's manner and 
technique, Webster should borrow also of the substance of his fables. 
But the Spanish Curate was licensed by Herbert only on October 
24th, 1622. This leaves just one year for the slow writer, Webster, 
to write his play and get it acted and printed ; it makes his allusion to 
the peppering in the East Indies pretty much belated and pointless ' ; 
and seems to run counter to what we learn of Queen's Companies 
in these years.'* The thing is not impossible, but very improbable. 
And the claims of the Fair Maid of the Ittn, as we have seen, are 
absolutely to be ruled out by reason of the explicit reference to 
Amboyna, impossible in 1623.'* 

Possibly, I say, the Spanish Curate may have influenced Webster 
in the more general matter of shameless intrigue and law-case. Yet 
Webster might very well be indebted to no source but LusVs Domin- 
ion. The law-case, the pompous, pettifogging lawyer, etc., were for 
him not far to seek : he had used them all in the White Devil, and he 



' " Some have been peppered there too lately." See above, p. 31. It would make 
the illusion come at least tvifo full years after the newrs of the " pepper," etc. 
' See above, p. 32. ' See above, p. 32. 



155 



Manuscriptum 
P. Sirmundi. 
Joannes 
Magnus, & 
Laurentiiis 
Venetus.', 



used them again in Appius and Virginia. And though LusVs Domin- 
ion did not appear in print till 1657, it very probably is the Spanish 
Moor's Tragedy ^ of 1600. It shows at all events the hand of Dekker, 
and must have been known to his old pupil and friend, whether in 
manuscript or on the boards. 

Indeed, in spite of similarities, all three plays in question— Fletcher's 
and Webster's — could have influenced each other only in the most 
general way, as appears when we look to their sources. The Spatiish 
Curate drew its story entire, even to the matter of the law-case, from 
Leonard Digges's translation (just issued) of Gerardo, the Unfortunate 
Spaniard'^; and it need not be further considered. The Fair Maid 
and the Law-Case drew originally, indeed, from one source, yet 
independently, like twigs on different boughs. Of the storj' of the 
Fair J\Iaid, I^angbaine long ago remarked that it was to be found in 
Nathaniel Wanlcy's Wonders of this Little World, or General History 
ofJlIan,^ transcribed from Nicolas Caussin's ' Lloly Court. From the 
latter I quote at length : 

PursuiiiK: the maxims I will recount an admirable passage, which he used among: 
others, to make his justice reiuarkable. A Roman I,aily left widow by the death of 
her husband, had lost a son bom of this marriage, who was secretly stoleu from 
her, and in ser\'itude bred up in another Province. This child grown up a young 
man, received notice from a good hand, that he was of free extraction, and son of a 
I,adie, whose name was given him, her aboad, and all circumstances, which caused 
him to undertake a voyage to JRfime with intention to make himself known unto her. 
He came directly to his mother, who was much perplexed with certain love-affairs, 
having betrothed herself to a man, who often promised her marriage, yet never 
accomplished it. This lover then absent, and detained by urgent affairs very far 
from Kome, the I<adie had the space of about thirtie days free, wherein she kept this 
young man in her house, acknowledging him, and particularly avowing him for her 
son, thoroughly convinced by evident tokens, so that then her charitie was so great 
towards hiju, that she ceased not to weep for joy, in the recovery of her loss. 



' Henslowe, p. 118 : " l,ayd owt for the company the 13 of febrearye 1599 [/'. e., 1600] 
for a boocke called the spaneshe mores tragedie unto thomas Deckers wm. barton 
John daye," etc. — This Collier identified with Lust's Dominion because of the 
Spanish Moor — EJleazar — a sort of Aaron, the central character. Bullen (Die/. Nat. 
Bioz., art. Dekkei) rejects this without discu,ssion ; vSidney I<ee Ub., art. Marlo7ue) 
accepts it as likely ; Fleay (I, p. 272) as certain. It must be .so. Dekker's hand is 
unmistakably present (see Haz.'s Dods., XIV, pp. 131, 133, 157, 174, for "do, do, do" 
and other abrupt language and rhythm of Dekker's, unlike anything in the models 
of this play — Malta or Tit. And. The metre, too, suits a date 1600. 

* Cerardo the Unfortunate Spaniard, of Gonsalo de Cespides. transl. by I,eonard 
Digges, reg. Mar. 11, 1622, and pub. the same year. Only seven months, and the 
Sfi. Cur. was licensed ! Uoth main-plot and under-plot are drawn from it. And the 
main-plot, with which we have here to do, is to be found at p. 231 f, the law-suit at 
p. 234. There is nothing to show that Web. had known this liook. 

* lyon., 1678, p. 185. Wanley uses, not tlie French version of Sainte Cour, but the 
one (nioted here, by Sir Thomas Hawkins. 

* Confessor of I,ouis XIII. B. 1583, d. 1651. 

156 



The thirtie days expired, thel^over returned, and seeing: this guest newly come to 
her house, deniandeth of the I<ady what man he was, and from whence he came. 
She freely answered, he was her son. He, whether moved by jealousie, thinking: 
this might be but a colour, or that pretending the marriage of the widow, he would 
not have a charge of children, plainly told her, if she .sent not away this found 
child from her lodging, never should she have any share in his affection. The 
unhappy creature .surprized with love, to serve his passion, renounceth her own 
entrals, and readily bani.sheth from her house this son, over whom she had so many 
tears. The young man seeing himself as between the hammer and the anvil, in so 
great a necessitie of his affairs, hasteneth to require justice of the King, who most 
willingly heard him, and commanded the I^ady should be brought before him to be 
confronted by him. She stoutly denied all the pretensions of the young man, saying : 
He was an impostor and ungrateful, who not contentins himself to have received the 
charities of a poor creature in her house, needs would challenge the inheritance of 
children. The son on the other side wept bitterly, and gave assurance, she had 
acknowledged him for her own, very lively representing all the proofs which passion 
and interest put into his mouth. 

The King sounded all passages to enter into the heart of the I,ady, and asked her 
whether she were not resolved to marry again. She answered, if she met 7vith a man 
suitable to her, she 7vould do what God should inspire her. The King replied, Behold 
him here, since you have lodged this guest thirtie days in your house, and have acknowl- 
edged him so freely, ivhat is the cause why you may not marry him? The I<ady 
answered: He had not any means, 7vkich ever is necessary for household e.r pence. 
And to what may your state truly amount, saith the King? The I,ady replied. She 
was very well zvorth a thousand crowns, which ivas a great riches in that time. IVell, 
(saith Theodorick) I will give as much to this young man for his marriage, oti this 
condition that you shall tnarry him. She much amazed, began to wax pale, blush, 
tremble, and to shew all the countenances of a perplexed woman, who sought to 
excuse herself, but faltered in her speech. The King yet to affright her more, .swore 
deeply she should marry him presently, or tell lawfull cau.ses of impediment. The 
poor woman condemned by the voice of nature which cried in her heart, and having 
horrour of the crime proposed unto lier, cast her self at the feet of the King, with 
much profusion of tears, confessing her loves dissimulation, and mishap. Then 
this great Prince taking the word from her : Are not you a miserable ivotnan ( saith 
he ) to renounce your own bloud for a villain who hath deceived you, get you to your 
house, forsake these fond affections, and live in the conditions of a good widow, taking 
unto you such support from your son as he by nature ought to afford you. 

Caussin's Holy Court, tran. by Sir T. H.,' l,ondon, 1650, p. 285. 

In the margin the reader will note Caussin's authorities. Of these, 
Joannes Magnus, the famous archbishop of Up.sala, whose history 
appeared in 1554,^ drew directly, as he admits, and almost word for 
word, from a ' lustinanus Venetus,' the same as the ' Laurentius ' of 



' /. e., .sir Thomas Hawkins. A French ed. is, so far as I can discover, not to be 
found in America. 

'' Magnus, b. 148H, d. 1544. — 7?^ omnibus Gothorum SvronuniQue Regibus Qtti 
unQuam ab initio nationis extitere, eorumque memorabilihus bellis, opera Olat 
Magni Gothi Fratris in Iticem edita. Romse, 1554, lib. ix, cap. 29, pp. 333-4. 
Reprinted, Basil., 1558, Stock., 1620. A book widely known in the 17th cent. 
(Kittredge). 



157 



Caussin, or, in the vulgar, Bernardo Giustiniani.* The latter, a 
Venetian senator, of the same illustrious family we have already 
learned to know, inserted this story into his history De Origins 
i'tbis Gestisque Venetorutu, first published in 1492.- 

. . . sed ut ad Theodericum revertamvir, justitiam in primis mirifice coluit. Haecduo 
feniiitur exeiupla. Fures adeo acriVnis paeiiis est iusectatus, ut liceret per omnem 
fere Italiam apertis januis speculisque dies & iioctes ajjere. Altervini autein quod 
cum nuilier defuncto viro secundas nuptias ainatori sponpondisset. & coiiditionem 
addidisset filiuiu doiuo ejecturam, questus est filius de luatre apud Theodoricum. 
Negabat coustanter inulier suuiu esse filium, suppositum dicebat ' cum eniteretur, 
multis hinc atque hinc argumetitis coutendebatur. Rex ingenio sagax ut veritatem 
erueret : Atgui iuquit o mulit'f pott'S, si me iiiidis .f'aci/i/fr isfa te molestia libetaie : 
Quin tu juveneni istum Qiii Jiliunt tuum sefacit, niariliivi accipe : minor est aetate & 
forte, facie. facile* liberal ior* ISIvilier animo commota, primum substitit quid responderet, cum 
aliquautum se collegisset multis cavillationibus earn rem subterfugere. neque sibi 
ipsi coustare caepit, sed omnia ambagilius involvere. Theodorico major orta sus- 
picio est. Itaque finxit se paenam addere, nisi consentiret. Turn adacta mulier 
sceleris horrore suum esse filium confessa est. Usus praeterea liberalitate est erga 
Patavinam urbem. etc. 

De Origine l'>bis GesiisQue I'enetorum Hisioria. ap. GraeWi 
T/iesaiir. Antig., L,ugdun. Batav., 1725, t. v., p. i., p. 51. 

This, the oldest record, the only other one I have been able to dis- 
cover, iscertainl)-, I think, not Caussin 's source. In the margin above he 
cites first a manuscript of a Pater Sirmundus (or P^re Jacques Sirmond, 
his friend, like him a Jesuit, and like him a man of wide reading and 
author of many books). "^ This was his source — some old, popular 
tale. For that the additions and variations of their version were made 
by either of these stiff-minded Jesuits of the seventeenth century is 
unthinkable ; and Giustiniani's version, on the other hand, seems to 
have been taken, not from ancient history, but from tlie exemplum or 
novella which Caussin used, and to have been shorn of its human 
graces and circumstantiality only to serve as a grave, historical proof 
of Theodorick's virtues as a judge. However tliis last be, the 
story in botli versions but especially in Caussin 's, with its simple 
humanity and pathos, its Byzantine motive of the finding of relatives, 
its Oriental one of the shrewd judgment of the king, and its identi- 
fication of that king %\-ith one of the late Roman sovereigns, is unmis- 
takably medieval, and takes its place among the tales of a collection 



' B. 140S, d. 14S9. That Ivaurentius and Bern. Justiuianns are the same appears 
from one of the Klosia prcfixeii to the latter's work, a letter headed Benediciiis 
Bros'iolus Laurentio Justiniano Sal. PI. D. " JS'ouielle Biog. i'niv. 

' Magnus reads dicebat. Cum, etc. He evidently does not understand eniteretur 
in the sense of being in travail. * M. reaAs facie liberaliore. 

' Nouv. Biog. Univ. — B. 1559, d. 1651. He succeeded C. as confessor to the king 
in 1637. 

158 



like the Gesta Romanonitfi,^ or, better, among the French or Italian 
novelle. Like most such stories, it may have been widely disseminated. 

Either version, Caussin's or Giustiniani's, would serve for the Fair 
Maid of the 1 7in. '^he substitution oi the child in the latter version 
would make it fit better ; but that was something at that day easily to 
be added ; and we may suppose that Fletcher got his material from 
either Joannes Magnus or a contemporary compendium. But it is 
highly probable that he used Caussin himself. The story of Gerardo, 
we have already seen, he took wet from the press. The Sainte Cour 
appeared at Paris so early as 1624, the second edition in 1625, and 
when we consider the immediate and wide-spread popularity of the 
work — the eighth edition appeared in 1629," — together with the fact 
that the Fair Maid could not possibly have been written before May, 
1624, ^ it seems every way likely that the wide-awake Fletcher had, 
even in England, seen the book and used it. 

Webster, on the other hand, drew directly from neither version, 
but through Dekker ' ; and he from Magnus, or some compendium going 
at his day. Curiously enough, Dekker took the first half of the old 
story, as Fletcher in the Fair Maid took the latter. Dekker reproduced 
only the scandalous conduct of the widow, intensifying it by reading 
bastardy for substitution ; Fletcher, only the king's judgment, making 
her motives, in the sequel, just and good. To this, Dekker adds the 
widow's intent for conscience sake to dishonor and impoverish her 
son, her naming of the father, and the rest. And Webster goes a step 

' I have searched for it in the old authors that deal with Theodorick, as Procopius, 
Jornandes, Isidorus Hispalensis, etc., in vain. But it certainly is only a medieval 
tale like that — so popular in the Middle Arcs — of the judg-nient of .Solomon, to be 
paralleled by the juditnient on the Jew in the Pecoione (and in Percy Soc. Pub., viii, 
p. 114, De niilite convctitioneni facientc), reproduced in the Met-, of Ven., and one 
in the lyatin tale De mnlicie conqueienledevioleiitid {Percy Soc, viii. 22) — attached to 
Theodorick's great name. Common to all three of these judgments, as to -Solomon's 
is the yielding at the outset to the claim of the unrighteous plaintiff. All these are 
unmistakably Oriental. See Gladwin's Persian Moonshee (Calcutta, 1801), Pt. II, 
which contains (stories i-xvi) a multitude of similar judgments, including the same 
as that of Solomon and De muliere. See particularly story x, wherein the Cazy 
declares he will believe the woman if she will stand naked before him. The innocent 
refuses, the guilty acquiesces. 

' These facts in the BibliothiQue de la Comi>. de JSstis. Paris, 1891, liMioa., t. II, 
su6. vac. — "The work had an immense circulation." See Bayle's Diet, for the 
number of editions (17), and of the languages into which it was translated. Prof. 
Koppel dismisses this subject summarily. See /., M., B., c2f F., p. 118, where he 
asserts that Caussin's Cour Sainte was first pub. in 1632, and, conseq.. the source is 
unbestimmt. Here, as in the case of P. L., below, Prof. Koppel betrays no acquaint- 
ance with the plots of W. 

' Becau.se of Amboyna. See above, p. 32. * /. f.,himand his associates. 

159 



farther, — puts the motive revenge for a dead ' lover in the place of 
desire to profit a living one,- and (if this be not, indeed, a step back- 
ward) adds an actual law-suit. 

The plot of the Laiv-Casc is Webster's first attempt at free inven- 
tion. His earlier plots, those of the White Devil and Jlfalfi, he 
borrowed as wholes — the story of JMalJi is but the story of Bandello 
— but here he weaves several old strands, with some of his making, 
into a web quite his own. For it is altogether probal)le that there is 
no source for the rest of the play. Some of the remaining motives 
and situations, no doubt, are old and time-worn ; some are odds and 
ends picked up from history and general curious information : but 
surely no two or more of them were ever before together. ■' For the 
first time he makes a plot, instead of cutting up a novel into acts and 
scenes. 

Appius and Virginia. 

The final source of Appius and Virginia is, of course, IJvy.'' 
Whether Webster went to him directlj-, or through the medium of 
some of the later versions of his tale, is a question Dr. L,auschke has 

' I.e., as she believes. 

' /. e.. ill the I.. D., to give the crown to Eleazar. 

' I.ed astray by Web.'s method in previous plays, and by two curious bits of 
information in the remainder of his story, such as are likely to be left standiiitr from 
some old Italian novella. 1 thonjrht at first there must be one source for this all. 
The one is a reference to the cloister of the liathanites, as a customary place of pil- 
grimaKC before ennaginK: in mortal conil)at (p. 106). This seemed like a vestige from 
an old story ; but research reveals no such order anywhere in Christendom. 
Curiously enough, however, one in Islam. " Bateniti, o Hataniti : setta particolare che 
si fonnci fra i mussulmani e che si componeva di uomini del populo " — Encic. Hal., 
Ill, p. 45. Conseciuently, a slip of Web'.s, and merely his own contribution. 

The other is a story (p. 51) told by Ercole, of Contarino's hereditary exemption 
from punishment, by virtue of his father's .services to Charl^p V in carrying his answer 
to the l''rcnch king's challenge, when he was engaged to fight upon a frontier arm 
of the sea in a flat-bottomed boat. This story of the kings and their challenge 
seems of itself a legend ; and, as for the use made of it, it seems one of these stop- 
gaps freciuently left standing from Italian tales. Hut it is strict history. Charles 
in 1528 uttered imputations against the honor of Francis I : the latter challenged 
him to single combat, and the former, in reply, named as the field " la rividre [de 
la Bidassoa] qui passe entre Fontarabye et Aiidaya." The herald, Horgona, who car- 
ried this cartel, was forced to undergo the greatest delays, privations, and indignities, 
before he was permitted to deliver it ; but whether he was finally thus rewarded, I 
cannot discover. — Pa piers <V Elal du Cardinal de (•laiivtlle. Paris, 1841, t. i, p. 405. 
Mignet's Kivoli/^ (1875) , II, p. 401 f. And this incident has been blent with another, — 
Charles's challenge of F'rancis in a full consistory of Pope and Cardinals, at Rome, 
in 1536, to " combatre en une isle, on sur un pont on batteau en cpielque riviere . . . 
et quant avix amies . . . que luy de sa part les trouverait toutes bonnes, fust-ce dc 
I'esp^e ou du poignard, en chemise." — I'ettitot, Collrcl. Coiiipf. Mint. (Paris, 1821), t. 
xviii, pp. 343-4. Sandoval, Ilistoria de Carlos I', Pamplona, 1614, t. ii, p. 304. 

* l,ib. Ill, cap. 43 seqq. 

160 



attempted to solve in his Leipzig dissertation.' He concludes that 
Webster did both ; and that Webster used not only lyivy but his j^ar- 
aphraser William Painter, and not only Dionysius of Halicarnassus ^ 
but his paraphraser Giovanni Fiorentino.'' 

To these conclusions we cannot altogether assent ; nor, when we do 
assent, do Dr. Lauschke's reasons always seem sufficient. On Painter, 
indeed, he lays no stress, but merely thinks it very probable that it 
was the version of the famous Palace of Pleasure that led Webster to 
turn to the original, Livy ; and, as a conjecture, we may let this pass. 
But when we turn to his arguments for Livy himself, we immediately 
ask, Why Liv)', and not Painter alone? All * the supposed word-for- 
word translations out of Livy may well enough come from Painter 
instead. One point only, and that not advanced by Dr. Lauschke, 
turns the balance for the great Paduan, — the name Minutius for the 
general at Algidum, which does not occur in Painter, Giovanni, or 
Dionysius, and does in Liv}' just before the story of Virginia."' 

Nor do we agree with Dr. Lauschke as to Webster's having used 
the Pecorone, and so, of course, not with his precipitate corollary — 
Webster's Kenntnis der italieni.schen Sprache.* Nothing can be said 
for the Pccorone that must not also be said for Dionysius, except 
matters of no moment, '' such as a very Websterian discrepancj^ between 
" Numitorius " and " Icilius " as sender of the message to Virginius, 
and — what could very well be suggested by Livy, Painter, or Hey- 
wood's Lncrece — ^tlie association of Virginia's name wdth that of 
Lucretia as having given Rome liberty through her death. It may 
well be, but there is no proof." 



• J. IV.'s Trae. A.& V., Eine Quellenstmiie, Potsdam, 1899. 

* Antiq. ront., lib. xi, cap. 28 .seciq. ' // Pecorone, .sec. novel of tueiit. da.v. 

* Except the " di.sguised in du.st and sweat " — 5o;-rf/rffl/«5 — lacking in I'ainter 
But this can have little weight. 

' L,ib. Ill, cap. 41. — In Dionysius the commander is several times named 
Antonius. Only far back in lib. x is Minutius mentioned. 

• I^auschke, p. 32. ' Ib..:-,\-2. 

* Two fair, but ladies most unfortunate, 
Have in their ruins rais'd declining Rome. 
lAicretia and Virginia, both renown 'd 
For chastity. A.& V., p. 224. 

E cosi, come la morte di Lucrezia fu cagione di liberare la cittd dalla tirannide di 
Tarquinio superbo, cosi la morte di Verginia diede occasione di liberare la patria da 
quei dieci tiranni. // Pecorone, I,auschke, p. 32. 

Sequitur aliud in urbe nefas ab libidine ortum baud minus foedo eventu quani 
quod per stuprum caedemque L,ucretiae urbe regnoqne Tarquinios expulerat. ut non 
finis solum idem decemviris qui regibus, sed causa etiam eadem imperii amittendi 
esset. Liv., Lib. Ill, 43, ed. Hertz. 

. . . who committed no lesse filthy facte, then was done by Tarquinius, for the 
rape of lyucreece. Painter, Vol. I, p. 35. 

161 



Dionysius, on the other hand, was used. He represents Appius as 
feigning to refuse the magistracy offered, just as in Webster, and 
inveighing, too (as there), against public life as aeque negotiosa atque 
invidiosa.' And he makes the defense raise the samie questions as in 
Webster — why Marcus had let the matter of Virginia's birth lie for 
fifteen j-ears unniooted, and why Virginius's wife had not chosen to 
cheer her lord by palming off on him a boy instead of a girl.^ These 
striking similarities are, as Dr. Lauschke holds, real proof of Webster's 
acquaintance with the version of the Ionian rhetorician. 

How far Webster follows the version of Dionysius, how far that of 
Livy, is, for our purposes, a question hardly worth inquiry : the stories 
are almost the same, and, as they do not abound in incident, Webster 
seizes on all in either. That of Dionysius furnishes most. From it 
Webster takes Appius's tempting of Virginia clandestinely with large 
pi-omises, the deceptive part Virginius's wife is accused of playing, 
the injured appeal of Marcus for justice, the throng of witnesses, 
and the bond-woman's oath.^ And from Livy he takes some of Vir- 
ginius's speeches to the army * and the suicide of Appius. A better 
question is, what are Webster's contributions * ? Such are Virginius's 
mission to the senate on account of the famine, the mutiny on his 
return which he alone can quell, his quarrel with Icilius, his relent- 
ings toward Appius at the end and Icilius's medicine for them, the 
plot to coerce Virginia b}^ plunging her father into pecuniary straits, 
the death of Marcus, the parts of the clown Corbulo and of the 
Advocate, and the raising of Virginius and Icilius to the consulate at 
the end. 

A Cure for a Cuckold. 

A source of Webster's part of the Cure for a Cuckold is, as I have 
already said, Massinger's Parliament of Love. Not the source, for 
this comedy, like the preceding one, is woven out of several materials ; 
and the Parliament of Love has furnished only the storj- of the lover 
connnanded bj' his mistress to kill his dearest friend, else never enjoy 
her love ; of the search for the friend under show of search for a 
vSecond in a duel ; of finding him, at last, on the eve of his marriage- 
night Cor of a meeting with his mistress); of the disclosure of the 
truth in a long speech, sword in hand ; of the agreement to deceive 



' Cf. Appius's conduct, A.& V., 129-32. — Dionysius : Illp primum ficte recusabat, 
missionem petens ab administratione aeque negotiosa, etc. Contr. Livy, who repre- 
sents Appius as seeking the office by hook or by crook. — Lauschke, pp. 24-5. 

'' Lau.schke, pp. 29 and 37. * lb., p. 42. 

° Jh., pp. 26, 29. 32, 35, 37. ' For all these see Lauschke, pp. 47-52. 

162 



the woman by reporting the friend dead ; and of marriage as the 
happy outcome.^ It has furnished some of the details, as well. In 
both plays the hero despairs of finding such a friend, and yet is but 
' ' miserably blest ' ' ^ when he finds him ; the friend renounces the 
joy of meeting with his sweetheart (which the hero himself urges ^), 
and is for taking horse forthwith ; the field is far away, and Second is 
to fight as well as Principal ■* : the friend, in ignorance, congratulates 
the hero on their being first on the field, ^ and later doubts the 
goodness of the quarrel " ; the hero reveals the truth in a startling way, 
before (or at the end of) a long declamatory speech, then turns bitter 
and relentless, and there is fiery eloquence on both sides ^ ; and the 
woman goes unpunished, is married, indeed, by the indignant hero. 
All this, surely, is enough to prove that the plots of the two plays are 
closely related, whether it be that Webster's is derived from Massin- 
ger's, or Massinger's from Webster's, or both from a common source. 

The merits of these alternatives (the last two of which have already 
been advocated) * can be settled only after a separate examination of 
the treatment of the story in the two versions and in their common 
source. 

The common source of the two versions is Marston's Dutch Courte- 
san. "^ This story is of a courtesan who accepts a second lover only on 



• This part of the plot of P. L. is to be found in Act II, 2 ; III, 2 ; IV, 2, and the 
final sc. 

' P. L., 130, 131, and 132 a, " To have the greatest blessing . . . the greatest curse," 
etc. C. C, p. 24. ' P. L., 131 b, " such a mistress too." C. C, 23. 

* In P. L. throughout that is taken for granted (see esp. 131 b), and so in 
L. F. L. (see below, p. 170). But Web. remarks vipon the strangeness of the require- 
ment (pp. 19, 20), and so gives, perhaps, an incidental proof that he is adopting an 
already finished story. To have done away with thefighihtg of the Seconds would, 
of course, have knocked a great hole in the plot. Yet instances of the fighting of 
Seconds are to be found in other plays of B. & F. (Hon. Mail's Fori., p. 486; Lovers'' 
Prog.) and in the judicial combat at end of Web.'s own D. L. C. — For clearness sake, 
I capitalize second and pt-incipal throughout. 

' P. L., 134b ; C. C, 44. * P. L., 135 a ; C. C, 44, 47. 

' P. L., 134b, 135 a; C. C. 45-48. Much more eloquence, of course, in Mass., but 
I,essingham's long speech (p. 45) strikes a key of declamatory eloquence found 
nowhere else in Web. See below, p. 189. 

' Genest (in Hist, of English Stage, quoted in Haz., IV, p. 4) was the first to 
point out that it was the same story in both plays. He himself thought they might 
have drawn from a common source independently. Mr. Edmund Gos.se in his Love's 
Graduate (see above, p. 35), p. v, thinks Mass. saw Web.'s play; Mr. Swinburne 
(quoted in sanie introd.), " I cannot but think that the two poets must have gone 
to a common source." Neither offers reasons. Prof. Koeppel ignores W. every time 
he discusses the Marstonian story and its derivates. 

" It may be that some more recent version, such as the latter part ( final sc.) of 
the Violante-Jamie-Henrique story in the Sp. Cur. (lie. Oct., 1622) attracted Mass.'s 

163 



condition that lie first kill the former (his friend, as she knows), who 
had deserted her. These agree to feign fulfillment of the command 
in order to circumvent and cheat her. She, however, la^'s a counter- 
mine, and has the second lover up for murder. But at the right 
moment the seemingly murdered one appears, and the woman is sent 
to prison.^ 

At one point this story ma}' seem nearer to Webster's than to Mas- 
singer's. Here jealousy is the motive, and one particular friend is 
meant. Now in Massinger the motive is cruelty and offended mod- 
esty, ^ and the command — to kill the dearest friend — is meant only 
as a penalty on the lover himself.^ In Webster, on the other hand, 
the motive at the start is evidently jealousy of Bonvile, later discov- 
ered to be Lessingham's "dearest friend": — Clare sulks at the 
marriage, and later avows to him and to Lessingham that she had 
loved him, and had tried through Lessingham to kill him.* Yet often 
(such is the obscurit}' and confusion in the motivation of this play) 
Clare's motive seems, like Leonora's,'' not to regard a third party: 
she herself declares several times that Lessingham had mistaken 
it, and once that she had meant by "dearest friend" herself*; 
and Lessingham interprets it, like Cleremond in the Parliament of 
Zoz'^, only as " malice " and "loathing" for himself." There is no 
point in Webster's version, moreover, so precisely like the original as 
that in Massinger 's of the woman's haling her lover before a court of 
justice on a charge of murder.* Neither version, then, is demonstra- 
bly enough nearer the original than the other to be taken on that 
ground alone for an intermediate step ; and that such an intermediate 
step is necessary — that the two versions did not draw from the 
original independenth', but one from the other — is proved by the 



attention (and Web.'s, possibly) to the story. But that this could not of itself be the 
source is clear. Violante offers herself instead of being sought, and Jamie does not 
report Henrique's death. That D. C. is the source was pointed out by Gifford. 
See Koep., Ch. M. F..p. 106. 

' The source accepted for Marston's story is Painter's (Bandello's) tale of the 
Cotiniess of Celant (Koeppel in loc). But to this M. owes nothing but the matter of 
a courtesan setting one lover on to kill another, his friend, and his promising, and 
failing, to do so ; no other circumstances, no motives or incidents. 

'P.L.,\Z7&. * C C, 70, 74, 75. 

* P. L., 127 b. ' The heroine in P. L. 

" Because, of course, of her misery for love and jealousy of Bonvile. The obscu- 
rity and confusion is so great that half the time it is impossible to tell whether by 
" friend " is meant Bonvile or Clare herself. See p. 71, 1. 6, where " that friend " 
seems for the moment just after the explanation to mean her ; but farther down the 
page evidently means Bonvile. See pp. 74, 75, where "your friend" and "his 
friend " seem certainly to mean Bonvile : but on p. 69 again are explained as Clare. 

' Expressly, pp. 46-7 ; but implicitly, passim. * P. L., 140. 

164 



great number of the points, not to be found in the original, at which 
they meet. ^ 

Which was the intermediate step ? Webster's, on the mere face of the 
matter, it couUl hardly be. For, in the first place, in the technique of 
no play of W^ebster's is the influence of Massinger and Fletcher so para- 
mount as in this very one : characters, stage-effects, and structure, — 
all show, as we shall shortly see, their unmistakable impress, which 
stands out in strong relief against Webster's previous, more old- 
fashioned style in the Devil's Law-Case . Study and imitation of 
technique, it is but natural to suppose, would lead to (or ensue upon) 
borrowing of subject-matter. In the second place, Webster's inven- 
tion would never have been equal, unaided, to the thrilling, yet well- 
ordered and continuous, succession of effective situations, attained not 
only in Massinger but in his own version. W^itness the clumsy and 
jerk}' movement of the DeviVs Laiv-Case, and the great measure of 
confusion and blunting he has managed, as we have seen, to bring 
into the motivation and drift of the pla}' now in question. In the third 
place, Webster's version shows internal evidence of derivation rather 
than of originality — of blundering contamination of two plots and 
of sophistication in the handling. Confusion, obscurity, we have 
already seen, prevailed in the motiving. This was due, as I think, to 
Webster's taking over bodily into his ground-plot of jealous love — 
Clare sulking at the wedding and the hitherto unrequited Lessingham 
offering marriage — the command sprung from offended modesty and 
virtuous, virago hate, with all the chain of incidents connected with 
it, the stor}', in short, of \he Parliatiient of Love. Clare, when wooed, 
cries, not, as Webster had intended, like the Dutch Courtesan, "kill 
Bonvile, ' ' - but like Leonora, 

Prove all thy friends, find out the best and nearest, 
Kill for my sake that friend that loves thee dearest.^ 

Nothing, as Clare's own previous and subsequent conduct proves, 
could be more unnatural or unintelligible, for not the slightest cause 
has been given her or us to suspect that Bonvile, the object of her 
jealous hate, will be the man. Lessingham himself understands the 
command only as sprung from malice and loathing toward himself, 
not another. This, then, inserted into the ground-plan, and put side 
by side with Clare's later positive protestations that she had meant 
one particular friend, Bonvile, — even meant herself, ^ — proves to be 
nothing but blind borrowing from an already elaborated and finished 
fable, a borrowing which does not fit. Lastly, Webster's version is 

' See above, p. 163. " D. C, II, 2, 176. ' C. C, p. 13. 

165 



too sophisticated, turns too much on word-play and lawyer-like tricks 
of phrase, to be the earlier. Webster's resolution of the complication 
" kill thy friend " by Bonvile's words, 

And thou may 'stbrag- thou 'st done 't ; for here for ever 
All friendship dies between us.' 

is much farther removed than Massinger's from the original, in which 
the two friends simply come to an agreement to feign death and cheat 
the woman. How unthinkable, moreover, that the same mind that 
first wrought out the later, intensely dramatic story (such even in Web- 
ster) , with its two moments of suspense — the miserably-blest discovery 
of a friend to slay and the bitter disclosure to him of the truth on the 
field, — objective as it is and stage-fit through and through, should 
have been the one to solve complications with hair-splitting and word- 
play, or should have been capable of breaking the back, so to speak, of 
the whole action by interpreting ' ' dearest friend ' ' as the woman 
herself. Surely, then, if any sort of case can be made out for Mass- 
inger, the award must be to him. 

To this case we turn. Some of the elements foreign to Marston's, 
and common to both Webster's and Massinger's version, bear 
Massinger's impress. The thrilling combat between friend and 
friend, in a lonely place, entered upon with a reluctant eagerness, 
together with the fiery, eloquent speeches on either side, full of start- 
ling disclosures, is like nothing so much as that ' unnatural combat ' 
between father and son of an earlier pla}' ^ : and the likeness is greater 
(as we should expect, if it was Massinger that conceived both) between 
this and his version of our story in the Parliament of Love. Such 
far-sought, complicated situations, and thrilling conflicts of feeling, 
moreover, are not rare in Massinger, appeal to him, indeed, above all 
other dramatists of the day, as opportunities for the play of his bent 
for subtle, dramatic eloquence, and for swinging passion like a pen- 
dulum from one extreme to the other. Such another situation is that 
in the Fatal Dozvry, where stern, fond Rochfort judges and condemns 
to death his own daughter, or that in the Roman Actor, where 
Domitian reluctantly condemns, at his own suit, the favorite, the 
really guiltless Paris. ^ Now this sort of thing is not to be found in 
Webster. Even a bare conflict of feelings, of which Massinger makes 
so effective and frequent use, is to be found nowhere outside of this 



' C. C, p. 48. — See the further solving of complications by hair-splitting on p. 49 : 

It would show 
Beastly to do wrong to the dead : etc. 

* Unnat. Combat, c. 1621 (Fleay). It must be early. * See below, p. 167. 

166 



play ^ ; and in this how greatly it is reduced, nothing shows so strik- 
ingly as a comparison of the philosophic, parabolic treatment of 
Lessingham's search for a friend in A Cure for a Cuckold with the 
thoroughly' dramatic, palpitating-reluctant search of Cleremond.-' 

Massinger, moreover, was the onlj' one of the two, in fact the onlv 
man living,^ who could have constructed the story. He, as is well 
known, was the greatest dramatic architect since Jonson and Beau- 
mont. No one now could hold and vary the interest in a tragic 
action as did he in the Bondnia7i or \h.& Roman Actor. And with him 
invention — pure invention, after the example of Beaumont and 
Fletcher — played a great part, a thing it never did or could do with 
Webster. In the Botiduian, or the Maid of Honor, or the Picture (to 
take only the certain cases), how little he owes ^ ! And for how many 
plays, like the Unnatural Combat or the Fatal DocK.<ry, no satisfactory 
or definite source has been found, or, perhaps, ever can be ! In no 
case, moreover, does he take the borrowed story in the lump for the 
plot of his play, as does Webster generally'. He always makes it over, 
and adds far more of his own, for dramatic needs : it is only a germinal 
idea that he borrows, and he grows, so to speak, his own play. And the 
result alwaj's is, as in this part of the Parliament of Love, an intelli- 
gible unity, terse and stage-fit to the end, — what Webster's two exper- 
iments in this kind, the DeviV s Law-Case and A Cure for a Cuckold, 
by no means are. 

That Massinger actually did construct his story independently (and 
if he independently of Webster, Webster, remember, dependently on 



' W.'s situations are all extremely simple and outward — the Duchess being tor- 
tured, or Vittoria a-baiting like a bear at the stake. There where it would seem 
that a conflict of feeling is forced upon him, where Virginius should be torn with 
love for his daughter's honor and for her life, there is nothing of the sort, V. gives 
some fine outcries of grief and tenderness, but not a sign of a struggle, or even of a 
purpose ; and we, except for our l,ivy, are as astounded as Appius or the People 
when he kills her. And where Isabella, out of love for her brutal hu.sband, publicly 
divorces herself from him {IV. D., 39-41), she plays the part (like Marston's char- 
acters) completely, as if a different person, a thorough virago. Web., in short, has 
no conflicts. Mass., on the other hand, has plenty. Paris wooed by Doniitia, the 
mistress of the emperor, fearful to refuse the great woman and fearful to accede 
{Rom. Act., IV, 2) ; Mathias's and Sophia's struggles against temptation in the 
Pict. : Vitelli's in the Ren., etc. 

"^ See C. C, pp. 17-24, where lycss. appears and meditates with his " author " on 
the rarity of friendship ; then holds conversations with three gallants who proffer 
friendship, more like those in old parables or the Gesta Ronianorum , with their 
balanced and evenly distributed proffers and evasions, than those of a drama. And 
when he meets the true friend, the tense interest, urgent dissuasion of Cleremond, 
{P. L., 131) is here but faintly echoed ; the more contemplative interest, however, of 
the irony of his situation — " miserably blest " — remains. 

^ Except Shirley. * See Koeppel. 

167 



him is made more clear and likely by tracing the evolution in this 
story down from IMarston through two plays known as Beaumont and 
Fletcher's — the Srorn/u/ Lady and the Little French Lazcyer, — the 
one certainly known to Massinger, and the other partly the work of 
his hand. This development is distinctly toward the Massinger form 
— that of the woman's " cruel tj- " and offended modesty — and not 
toward that of Webster. 

The Scoriiful Lady, - printed in 1616, and written, as title-pages and 
critics agree, ' by both Beaumont and Fletcher, presents, among other 
matter, the story of an accepted suitor who in public had forced a kiss 
from his lady, and for that is condemned by her to a long and arduous 
task. He tries, however, to outwit her ; brings in disguise the report 
of his own death ; and so elicits a rueful declaration, like Leonora's in 
the Pari ia)nent of Love, that were he alive she would marry him. All 
this furnishes just the essential transition needed from Llarston's to 
Massinger's version ' ; one, too, that, in view of the early printing of 
the play and Massinger's extraordinary intimacy A\nth Beaumont and 
Fletcher's work,'' must certainly have served him." 

And a fui'ther transition, not in this case essential, yet interesting as 
discovering something of the gestation of the fable in Massinger's 
brain, is furnished in the Little Freiic/i Lazcyer. This play, probably 
to be dated before May, 1622, " is, as all critics admit, by both Fletcher 
and INIassinger ; — proved, anyway, to be in the latter 's mind when he 
wrote the Parliament of Love by the four proper names * borrowed 



' See above, p. 164. 

- Uoyle somewhere observes tJiat the Sc. L. and the P. L. have points in common. 

^ 'Dyce, Fleay, Oliphant. and Boyle. — See, too, the Varior., B. & F. (l,on. 1904). vol. 
I. pp. 356-60. 

■' None of these new features in the Sc. L. version is to be found in the source from 
which Mars, drew, the story of the Countess of Celant. — See P. /,., pp. 126-7 and 
142 b. 

' A connuonplace of criticism. .See p. 174. — Sc. L. must have been very popular. 
Few H. & !•". pla>s were iirinted before the Folio. This was assigned over May S, 
1617, and there arc other cd. hearing the date 1625, etc. 

" It is worth.N- of note that the complication is in both plays first presented to us 
in a conversation between the lady and the hero, in which tlie hero recites to her his 
misdemeanor (for oiir benefit, of course, not hers\ and justifies himself by his 
having often kissed her in private, and the lady pronounces the penalty. A-. L., p. 
80. and/*. /.., pp. l.'6-7. 

' Mr. Oliphant (Eiig/. S/iici.. XVI. p. 1S5) says it »iiis/ be so date;!, on the basis, I 
suppo.se, of the play's not being in Herbert's Office Book, which starts then. 

" Dinant, Clcremont (spelletl Cleremond in P. L.) , Beaupre, and l.amira. If it 
should be objected that as the date of the /-. F. I., is not certain, it might be later 
than P. I., (lie. Nov. 24, 1624), I should be content to retort even witli tliis arg\iment 
of the borrowing alone. I'or .see the following list of rare names borrowed from B. 
and F. : Chamont (Shamont), .\/<r I'alour (Fleay and Thorndike, 1612-13). Mass.'s 

16S 



from it for that play. The likeness between it and the Parliament of 
Love is greater on second thought than first ; some of the incidents are 
but differently distributed, or are reversed. The young man, Dinant, 
engaged to fight as Principal in a duel, receives, like Montrose, Second 
in the Parliament of Love, a commission from his mistress in what 
nearly concerns her honor, ^ and, unlike Montrose, is deterred by it 
from fighting by the side of his friend and Second, Cleremont. The 
latter is thus left in the lurch, to meet single-handed both Principal 
and Second of the other side. Here, then, as in the Parliament of 
Love, the Second proves a truer friend than the Principal, and the 
Principal receives as a condition of her favor - an unreasonable and 
outrageous command from his mistress, which he slavishly, against 
all dictates of conscience, obeys ; and while in the Parliament of 
Love the Second, in face of the appointment within two hours to 
meet his mistress on business which concerns her honor, stands fast 
for friendship, the Principal here gives way, and goes, on like business, 
a two-hour errand for her. Thus we see how first the relations of the 
two types of friend — the friend who gives up friendship for love and 
the friend who gives up love for friendship^ — form in Massinger's 
mind as those of Principal and Second in a duel ; and, further, discern 
the two main forces of the later story fully developed (though yet blent 
together) , — the ruthless command of an imperious woman delivered 
to the Principal as a condition of her favor, which starts the action, 
and the mere conflicting command (or appointment), delivered to the 
Second, in business which concerns her honor, which tends to hinder 
the action and is a measure of the friendship ^^ of the Second. 



Untial. Com. (Fleay, c. 1621), and P. L. (1624) ; Vitelli, Love's Cure (Dyce, 1608-12; 
Thonidike, 1606), and M&ss,.' a Renegade (lie. Apr., 1624); M&\iort,Lo7;ers' Prog. (lie. 
Dec, 1623) , and Mass.'s Unnat. Com. ; Ascanio, Sp. Cur. (1622) , Double Afarr. (1620 ?) , 
Triumph of Love (1608?), and Mass.'s Bashful Lover (lie. 1636) ; Calista, Lovers' Prog., 
and P. L. (Beaupr^'s disguise). This last point fixes the baekward limit of the last- 
named play. '■ L. F. L., p. 416 b, and P. L., 131 a. 

' L. F. L., 416b. L,amira is guarded, and does not promise absolutely. 

' The parallel is, of eourse, not perfeet. Cleremont, the .Second in the L. F. L.. has 
no struggle with love. 

* In the P. L. the ruthless command (to kill the dearest friend) eomes to Clere- 
raond from L,amira, his mistress, and the conflicting appointment (to meet in two 
hours on what concerns her honor) to Montrose, the Second, from his mistress : in 
the /.. F. L. the only command given is that of I^amira to the Principal, Dinant, 
having these features of the ruthless command — the peremptory order to do some- 
thing to injure a friend (leave Cleremont in the U:rch), to a suitor, as a condition of 
favor; and these of the conflicting appointment — that it comes not as causing the 
duel but as conflicting with it, and that it concerns her own honor or reputation. 
In Web. the conflicting appointment is repre.sented only by the consideration, urged 
upon Bonvile. that he is on his wedding eve, and by the sudden appearance of 
Annabel in the midst of their conference. 

169 



Equally important to the development is the presence here of details — 
some of them those that appear also in Webster, — as furnishing 
more definite and tangible, though less essential, links. Cleremont, 
the name of the Principal in the Parliamriit of Loir, is that of the 
Second in the Little French Liucyer ; the scene, as in the Parliainent 
of Love, is in Paris, and the duel a few miles out ; and the Second here 
must fight as well as the Principal, ' and congratulates himself on his 
side being first on the field,-' just as in the Piirliaiiietif of Love aiul in 
Webster. 

The tracing of this evolution down from Marston is of itself, to my 
mind, argument. It explains completely the rise of the fable in 
Massinger's mind without help from Webster, and could not possibly 
be wrested to explain such in Webster except with Massinger coming 
in between. In the Scornful Lady, indeed, we are yet on neutral 
territory. But while the play may have been known to Webster, it 
serves to explain nothing in him : it must have been known to Mas- 
singer. After that, in the Little French Lawyer, we are on INhissin- 
ger's own grouiul, a play in which he had a hand, or which, as 
certainly as black is black and white is white, was known to him ; and 
from here the course of the stream runs straight toward his Parlia- 
ment of Love. Here, in the Little French Lawyer, arise all the 
remaining important features of the Parliament of L^ove version, as 
well as many of the more striking details : — the friend who proves 
more lover than friend and the friend who proves more friend than 
lover, in the relation of Principal and Second in a duel ; the ruthless 
command of an imperious woman, aiul the mere conflicting comniaiul ; 
the details of proper names, fighting of Seconds, joy at being first 
on the field, and the rest. The stream runs straight, and we have no 
need of Webster. Indeed, Webster's version coming between (if we 
can conceive it there), with its confused and wavering motivation, 
sophisticated handling, and clumsy adaptation, could never have 
helped, and would only have hindered, the natural culmination, of the 
development in Massinger's brain, the brilliant version of the Parlia- 
ment of LOi'e. And, on the other hand, Webster's version as branch- 
ing off from the Little French La7cyer and attaining independently 
results so identical with INIassinger's, is still more inconceivable. 
Before examining the Little French Larvyer we thought the two ver- 
sions so like as necessarily to be related in the way of cause and 
effect ^ ; and we must think so still. The elements of the story to be 
found in the Little French Lawyer are enough, since we have proof 
that they were in IMassinger's mind, to lead up to the outcome 



' /.. F. /.., 416-lS. Cf. above, p. l(x>. * /.. K I... 416 a. ' St-e above, pp. 16o, 165. 

170 



in his Parltavient of Love ; but thai they, still colorless and scattered 
as they are, should in a second mind, Webster's or any man's, — even 
had we proof that they had reached it, — lead independently to an 
outcome so similar, is beyond belief. 

We may conclude without much hesitation, then, as we gather up' 
in mind all the evidence here presented, that Webster borrowed the 
story of cruelty and offended modesty from Massinger, and bound it 
up, without appropriate change, with the old Marstonian, or for that 
matter, world-old, motive of jealous love. * 

II. THE INFLUENCE OF FLETCHER AND MAvSSINGER. 

With such brevity as the limits of this work impose I wish to treat 
of a subject hitherto never broached, the influence on Webster, in his 
last plays, of Fletcher and Massinger. Such influence of the reigning 
fashion we have already noted at this very day in the veteran Chap- 
man ^ ; fiuch Mr. Thorndike and others have shown at an earlier day in 
Shakspere ; it need not, therefore, surprise us, or pain us, if found in 
one who, though he thought worthily and seriously of his art, could 
have thought no more worthily and seriously than they. Rather, it 
should seem to us only natural. Since the day of IVeslzvard Ho and 
Northward Ho Webster had done no work in comedy, and then he 
was under Dekker's thumb. As now, twenty years after, without a 
bent for any special style, he turned his hand to comedy, how should 
he write but in the dominant style of the day, that of the court poets, 
F'letcher and Massinger ' ? 

' I have devoted so nnieh space to attain this result, remember, in order not only to 
ascertain the .source but also to .settle the date. .See Chap. I, p. .34. Confirmation of 
such date (after Nov., 1624) is furnished by a comparison with the D. I,. C. (1621-23), 
which at several points is touched by C. C. but never by /». L. It, too, contains two 
duels (the .second not as in C. C. merely intended) between two young men, 
about a woman ; Calais sands (p. 103) are mentioned as a duellinsr-ground ; one 
of the duellists has his will made and .sent to the bride W. /- C, 48 ; C. C, 54) ; there 
is warning given not to fight [D. L. C, 27; C. C, 93); an intentionally obscure letter 
is sent by the woman to her lover (£>. /.. C. 107 ; C. C, 13) ; the question of wearing 
a privy coat and the honorableness of it arises in very similar fashion just before the 
fight (.see above, p. 38). Kven at this last point the C. C. comes in contact with P. I,.: 

The defence I mean is the justice of my cause ; 



What confidence thou wearest in a bad cause ! C. C, 47. 

See how weak an ill cause is ! P. L., 135. 

Of it.self such evidence proves nothing, but it is incidental confirmation that in the 
meantime the P. L. has intervened. * See App. II. 

" This .seems likelier still if we acknowledge B. & V. influence even in the sec. 
Period. .See p. 151. 

171 



To tragi-comcdy, I should say, for such are Webster's two plays, and 
the type of Fletcher and Massinger he followed. In this case it is a 
modification of the dramatic romance of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
defined so accurately by Mr Thorndike, ' and is represented by such 
later plays as the Little French Lawyer, the Lovers' Progress, the Fair 
Maid of the Lnn, the Bondman, the Renegado, and others. These, like 
the earlier romances, are ingenious, artistic puzzles in plot, things of 
suspense and mystery, which — often against fact and human nature — 
hold the interest to the end.- Like them, they deal with foreign 
rather than English life, gentlemen and ladies ■' or their dependants, 
no low life (except the idyllic, sylvan, or pastoral), and marvel- 
ous, often fabulous, complications. Like them, they present conven- 
tional types of character within a definite and narrow range, and 
make them use practically one and the same language. Like them, 
their plots are invented far more than borrowed, are thoroughly made 
over for dramatic needs, and cover not years and decades in the action 
nor the map of F/Urope in scene, as did the old-stj-le plays before 
Beaumont and Fletcher, but days or even hours, and one district or 
city. Like them again, and unlike the old plays, they do not deal 
with one central tragic passion and issue in a uniform tone : there is 
no one unmistakable hero, but several ; the sentimental love-story is 
made not the relief of the tragic action but the core of it ; and so the 
same action runs, with constant variety, now deep and tragic, now 
light and sentimental . Both regard stage-effectiveness. They strive 
after movement and "business," after intensity of situations rather 
than coherency and firmness of plot, and after a pleasant variety of 
sensations, even at the expense of naturalness in resolutions, of truth 
of character, and of dignity and nobility of tone. 

.' For brevity's sake, I must refer once for all to his Influence of B. (£f F. on Skak., 
Chap. VII, ' The Romances.' Practically all I say of the romances of B. & F. I draw 
from him, except where they are discussed as differing from the later plays. 
Although the later plays, too, are romantic enouRh, I .shall for convenience sake use 
the word romances as applying only to the plays Mr. Thorndike considers, M. Tr., 
Phil., Thier. & Theod., K. N. K., Cup. Keii., and Four Plays in One, the only plays, 
indeed, in which U. (apart from his own plays. ll'otnan-Hater and Knight of the 
Burning Pestle) can have had much share. 

. '^ Ksp. in the lively denouement, taken notice of by Trofessors Wendell and Thorn- 
dike. This is conspicuous in D. L. C. C. C, and, by Virsjinius's relentings and 
Icilius's cure for them, even in A. & V., though in all cases without the B. & K. 
ingenuity. Comp. the vicissitudes of the action in the d6no\iement of Chapman's 
Alfilionstis at this time (see App. II). Contr. close of Byron and Bttssy, mere 
declaniation. 

" This much in common ; but in the romances they are courtiers and the scene is 
a court, while (see infra) in l'"let. (as in Web.) they become more and more ladies 
and gentlemen. 

172 



In other ways they are unlike. They lack the distinctively 
Beaumontesque features, — the high tragic note, the hearty, flound- 
ering fun, or the bent for the mock-heroic and burlesque; the keen 
dramatic sympathy which made separate situations more vivid and 
absorbing than any out of vShakspere ; Beaumont's irony, pathos, 
tender idyllic or chivalrous sentiment, and stately rhythm. But the 
root of the matter is that they lack Beaumont's, the early PHizabethan, 
fidelity to morals and to art. Their whole end is to entertain and sur- 
prise. In a measure and way unknown even to Beaumont, character 
is made subservient to plot and plot to situations. In the romances, 
the characters, psychologically considered, remained fairly consistent ; 
or when they were not, the break was not made much of, but smoothed 
over. ^ And, morally considered, they remained consistent through- 
out the play : the hero and villain of the beginning were hero and 
villain at the end. Quite otherwise with the plays of Fletcher and 
Massinger. In these the souls of men labor under all sorts of ' ' sudden 
alterations " and eclipses, disguises and dissemblings, conversions and 
relapses, and they wax and wane in goodness, are murderers or saints, 
within the moment. They are but puppets, and utter the lively, elo- 
quent, unreal speeches (with no need of pathos or irony), and do the 
startling things, that the plot demands. ^ Consequently, the old char- 
acterization by description, as extravagantly good or extravagantly 
bad, together with the contrasts involved, falls away ■*; all are good or 
bad as the scene changes, as the kaleidoscope turns ; and thus puzzle 
of character is added to puzzle of plot. Kven the construction sticks 
full of insincerity, of false reports, false auguries, and mock events — 
unexpected, impossible turns, — to fetch a telling situation, and of 
such a measure of dramatic injustice as rewards and .saves all the 
good and forgives all the bad. Partly as a result of this dramatic 
method, partly as the expression of the authors' own views and those 
of the day, there prevails a great and general insensibility to the 
reality of morals. Monstrous and flagitious things are intended, even 
done, for the .situation's sake, and no one is troubled. Credit and 
reputation, the name of a thing and not the thing, the deed and not 
the motive, are what count. Pure women are conceived by them- 
selves and by others only as standing on the brink of impurity, and 

' .See below, p. 180. 

' Nowhere is all this so frankly confessed as at the end of Corinth, p. 46 b, 
Euphanes's second speech, in which he admits the whole present .sc. to be nothing 
but dramatic hoax and humbug. 

^ .See Thorndike as to this in tlie B. & F. romances, p. 120. The women in M. Tr., 
Phi!., etc., are described, then represented as very good, or very bad, and a contrast 
is thus established between pure and sensual love. 

173 



€hances are coolly taken on the outcome ; and when they have fallen, 
on the other hand, it is only a brief matter of conversion and repent- 
ance to make all straight again. And courtesy is turned to hardness 
and grossness. Beaumont's Arethusas, Aspatias, and Spaconias give 
place to Fletcher's and Massinger's foul-mouthed prudes and viragos ; 
the chivalry of Amintor and Philaster to the glittering conventionali- 
ties of Fletcher's Lisander ^ and Massinger's Vitelli.'- Purity, then, 
nerve, veracity, and simplicity have everywhere sadly waned, and that 
•delicacy and chivalrousness of feeling under which in Beaumont's 
work vice itself lost half its evil b}^ losing all its grossness, has faded 
away like a mist. 

We have spoken of Fletcher's later work and Massinger's work 

as if they were one, and for our purposes it is convenient. Of 
Massinger too little a body of independent work has come down to 
us, and that little generally too late or uncertain in date, and, anyway, 
too deeply impregnated with the influence of his great compeer, to 
warrant his claim to be Webster's sole sponsor. On the contrary, not 
onl}' is there almost no point in Webster's art at which Massinger's 
influence can be shown where Fletcher has not been before him, but 
also there are many points, such as the comic aspects of the Cure for 
a Cuckold, where Webster seems to touch Fletcher alone. Indeed, 
the type of the Cure for a Cuckold (that play which borrows so largely 
from the plot of a play of Massinger's) and, in less degree, of the 
DeidVs Law-Case, bears decisively the stamp of Fletcher. In the 
doing away with the political element which was part and parcel of 
the older romances — intrigues, usurpations, conspiracies, and rebel- 
lions ; — in the laying of the scene in gentlemen's families instead of 
at court, and in modern Spain, France, or England instead of in the 
realms of fancy ^ ; in the depicting of the gallants and belles 
of the day, with all the local color and contemporary allusions 
impossible in the romantic, pseudo-classical atmosphere of a Lycia or 
Sicilia, or in the age of " gods " and goddesses **; and in the general 



• In the Lovers'" Pros:. ' In the Renegado. 
" This is characteristic of Fletcher, esp. in the latest plays. Instead of " L,ycia " 

and " Pannonia " or an equally fanciful, vinhistorical "Corinth," — Valladolid, 
Segrovia, Paris, Candia. Enpr., however, seems to be reserved for pure comedy, as in 
H^i/ 7vilhout Mutiey, Night Walker, though Mons. Thomas at least is an instance of 
Fletcher's laying the scene of a tragi-comedy there. Cf. C. C, — Besides in the plays 
cited here, the scene is laid in French or .Spanish gentlemen's -families in such plays 
as Fair Maid, Pils., Love's Pilg., Noble Gent., Love's Cure. etc. 

* This appears, of course, much more in the pure comedies — Wild Goose, Wit 
■withottt Mon. — but nevertheless in Mons. Thomas, and, in a Spanish or French garb, 
but still with plenty of direct and indirect satire of " England," in Elder Bro., 

174 



lowering of the tragic tone, — the DeviVs Law-Case and the Cure for 
a Cuckold are like the Parliament of Love, indeed, and the late 
Guardian,^ but still more like the much earlier plays of Fletcher, 
the Lovers' Progress, the Maid in the Mill, or the Spanish Curate. ^ 
Of direct borrowing from Fletcher, moreover, there is, though no 
proof as with Massinger, yet some indication. Archas in the Loyal 
Subject may have been, as we shall see, the model for Virginius. — — 

Quite such are Webster's two tragi-comedies, especiallj* the Cure 
for a Cuckold. They, too, as never before in Webster, are puzzles 
in plot and character. They, too, depict ladies and gentlemen, and 
unfold marvelous events and complications. The}', too, present lay- 
figures instead of fresh, original characters. They, too, seek stage- 
effectiveness, and at a like cost in truth of character and circumstance. 
But all this must be viewed piece bj' piece. 

The Substance of the Fabi.e. 
In mere material the DeviVs Law-Case and the Cure for a Cuckold 
have much in common with these later plays of Fletcher's and Mas- 
singer's. The}' present a love-story developed tragically but ending 
happily. They deal with strange, improbable complications, more 
like those of a fairy-tale than of a drama, but offering always, in their 
extremes, situations of telling power or chances for striking dramatic 
reversals. vSuch in Webster are the stabbing that cures a man, the 
unheard-of law-case,^ the command of the beautiful woman to her 
lover to kill his dearest friend,* the story of Rochfield the honest 
thief, all of which have not only a general but a particular likeness 
to situations in Fletcher and Massinger. Here, too, certain stock 
incidents and scenes of the Fletcherian comedy recur : sea-fights, ■' 
woodland scenes in which helpless women meet woodmen, outlaws, 



L. F. L., etc. The romances have instead much false heathen atmosphere, appeals 
to the " gods," and Venus and Cupid actually on the stage. 

^ Acted Oct. 31, 1633. 

' Given only as examples: there are plenty of others, as L. F. L., the dates of 
which are not decisively to be settled. — The Sp. Cur. dates 1622, the others 1623. 

^ See above, p. 154 f, the analogues of these in Fletcher. 

* See the command of Olinda to her suitors. Lovers' Prog., I, 2, and others 
below, p. 191. 

° Narrated in C. C. as having just occurred, pp. 56-7. In Flet. they occur 
repeatedly, as in Beg. Bush, pp. 223-4, narrated ; Doub. Marr., II, 104-5, and K. Malta, 
131, on the boards. They are of a piece with Flet., who is full of wrecks, sea-adven- 
tures and pirates, as well as sailors and sea-captains, outlaws, amazons, and martial 
maids. See Sea-Voy., Cus. Count., Martial Maid, etc. Cf. Mass.'s Very Woman, 
Ren., etc. 

175 



or robbers,' trials and law-cases,- trial b\' combat,^ and, above all, 
duels. "^ All this is very different material from an)' hitherto treated by 
Webster, whether in the citizen comedies or in the revenge tragedies : 
not one of these incidents or situations (except the bare law-case) 
resembles any in them. 

Construction. 

But the construction is the main subject of imitation. The plot in 
both Beaumont and the later court-drama, as we have seen, is a fasci- 
nating, moving puzzle. Complications forming, complications resolv- 
ing, or rather seeming to resolve, but running immediately into new, 
— how will it all end ? we ask. For the method is that of myster}' and 
surprise. Conclusions are not foregone, intrigues are not confessed 
and expounded before they are executed, motives are but darkly hinted 
at, and disguises and concealed identity are often left as impervious to 
the spectator as to the characters on the boards. Issues, moreover, 
are not abruptly and simply decided ; they waver and librate tantaliz- 
ingly before they settle. 

To Webster this method of keeping one's counsel, or of keeping 
issues agitating, was hitherto unknown. The schemes and intrigues 
of the citizen-plays and the revenge-plays are blabbed out beforehand ^ : 
there is no diversion or suspense (except somewhat in the denouement 
of Malfi) in the executing of them, and disguises are always betrayed 
to the audience from the beginning. Not so with his later plays. The 
trial in the Lazv-Case, for instance, is a great technical advance over 
that in the White Devil; the intent of the plaintiff is but darkly 
hinted at, and revealed only in open court, and the identity of the 
judge with the co-respondent is kept back for a climax to the whole. 



' C. C, pp. 27-30. This is old: it appears in Two Gent, of Ver. and Cynibeline. 
But it becomes one of the stock situations in the very romantic romances of B. & F., 
■with their pastoral or sylvan scenes ; appears in Phil, (hence in Cytn., see Thorn.), 
and so often in later plays of Flet., as L. F. L., IV, 5, and V, Pilg., Beg. Bush, V. 1. 

' Appear repeatedly in Flet. and Mass. 

^ End of D. L. C. — K. Malta, pp. 136-7 ; Love's Cure, end. 

* One occurs in each play, D. L. C. and C. C, besides the trial by combat at the 
end of D. L. C. and the duel threatened at the end of C. C, p. 9Z. — Lovers' Prog.. 
pp. 643, 650 ; Hon. Man's Fori., p. 487 ; Beg. Bush. 216 ; L. F. L., p. 415 ; Mass. Unnat. 
Com. : etc. ; as well as a lot of duels threatened but hindered, and single combats 
like duels, only lacking the preliminary formal challenge, as in M. Tr., Love's 
Pilg., Eld. Bro., Love's Cure, etc. —There is always a fight impending ; nothing fur- 
nishes so much of the business as the clatter and flash of swords. " Draws," " offers 
to stab himself," occur time and again in every play. 

* /. e., when there are any. Web. generally so neglects motivation (see above, 
p. 92), that simply nothing is said. Once, however, in connection with the denoue- 
ment of Mai. mentioned above, Bosola only hints at his plan, in the Fletcherian 
" something I will do." V. Mai., p. 252. 

176 



And in the Cure for a Cuckold the emotion of suspense, hitherto almost 
unknown in Webster, appears in Lessingham's expectation of Clare's 
reply, in the search for a friend, and at the disclosure of his purpose 
on the field. ^ In both plays the heroes, or rather villains, hint darkly 
at the project in hand, almost in the stereotyped "something I will 
do " ^ of Fletcher and Massinger. 

But Fletcher (he more than Massinger) often chose to neglect 
mystery and to abbreviate suspense, in order to gain effects of sur- 
prise, — vivacity of movement or intensity of situation. His char- 
acters do abrupt, inconsistent things,' — I mean, not that violence 



* The consideration of the stage-effectiveness of individual situations in W.'s last 
comedies would, if there were space for it, furnish of itself sufficient proof of W.'s 
indebtedness to at least the first great masters at that, B. & F. There is nothing 
in Web. so skilfully contrived for the stage as the suspense of I^essingham's 
waiting for Clare's reply, under fire of the gallants' chatter and raillery, and 
the still greater suspense of I^essingham's meeting with Bonvile while on his 
fatal search for a friend. The latter sc, though by no means equal to MaFS.'s 
version so far as regards the subjective qualities, the presentation of the contention 
of motives in the seeker, of desire to meet his mistress and headlong devotion in 
the friend, is (for a marvel) superior to it in objective quality, in mere stagecraft. 
There is the sharp reversal of Bonvile's impetuous entry, " Why how now frievd f " 
just when L,essingham had averred " there "s no such thing beneath the moon," and 
that specially well-timed entry of Annabel, Bonvile's bride, just when she is in 
both their minds, with its purely suggested pathos and struggle of emotions (C C, 
pp. 23-4). "Dover?" cries Bonvile, as she goes out. What an opportunity for an 
actor ! Cf. with this examples cited below, p. 186, for the stagecraft of Flet. in comic 
situations. See both Mass. and Flet. passim for tragic ones : esp. the suspense of 
Ordella's meeting with Thierry veiled {Tliier. & Theod., IV, l) ; 4th sc. of Act III in 
Lovers'' Prog., with the well-timed, pathetic, and yet thrilling entries of Cleander, 
the injured husband, together with the many other sensations (voices, pistol shot, 
etc.) ; the sensational entry of Alberto and Cesario in Fair Maid, V, 3 ; the arrival of 
the challenge in Lovers' Pros., II, 1. with its purely suggested emotions; or such 
business and stagecraft as in Fatal Do7vry, IV, 4, where Rochfort is robed, chaired, 
and blindfolded, to judge between his daughter and son-in-law. 

^ The set phrase, with variations such as " something I will say," etc., and gen- 
erally with the addition, " but what it is I know not, " in which the villain or the 
jealous hero darkly intimates his plot. It occurs repeatedly in Mass. ; and in doubt- 
ful partnership plays Boyle {Ens. Stud., IX, 238) holds that its occurrence at such a 
juncture in the plot (at least in the ca.se of a jealous hero) indicates his hand. On 
the lips of others than jealous heroes, however, it occurs in plays which Boyle himself 
assigns entirely to Flet., — Woman's Pri^ae (p. 213) and Island Prin. (pp. 240, 242), as 
also in Lovers' Prog. (p. 648), K. Malta (p. 133), and its equivalent in Captaiii 
(p. 635). The originator of it, then, is surely Flet., not Mass.^" I will do. somewhat," 
etc., C C. 72; " I am full of thoughts, strange ones, bvit they 're no good ones," 
V.L.C.,49. Cf. D.L.C.. p. 73. 

^ I. e., things that break entirely with the person's former trend of conduct. 
Any fine cavils of psychology are, of cour.se, out of the question here, for, whether in 
Flet. or in Beau., the characters are rather acting figures. Nor are distinctly comic, 
" humorous " characters to be considered. .See below. 

177 



to character, so coininoii in Elizabethan plays, to bring about a happy 
denouement, but ruptures in the middle of the action: — do with a 
whole heart what they have just said they would not do ' ; attack their 
friends and defend their enemies- ; reject a lustful w^oman's advances 
and then as warndy woo them * ; win a coveted honor at every hazard 
only to renounce it * ; burst suddenly into love and as suddenly and 
unreasonably into jealousy ' ; even deliberately renounce virtue or 
vice (as the case may be) on the spot. '^ These unnatural, unexplained 
changes (or turjis, as we may conveniently tall them) prove later on 
to have been either pretended — mere dissembling and lying" — or 
(the distinction is often hard to draw) final and genuine : in all cases 
they are at first, and often continue to be, unjustifiable surprises and 
cheats.'* Nor are turns of plot lacking (here the surprise is in the 



* Lover's Prog., p. 643 b. where Ijsander tells L,idian he cannot help him, Indian 
makes all he can out of that situation, grows very desperate, and starts to fight 
again, whereupon I^isander does interfere. 

' Sp. Cur., p. 182, when Don Jamie takes Violante's part, and seizes his friends. 
Cf. Martia's conduct in Donh. Mair., p. 107 ; and Miranda's visit to Mount., which 
ends in his fighting agaj'ns/ his sweetheart. A'. Malta, II, 3, 5; Hon. Man's Fort., 
p. 482, Dubois's hiring out against his friend. 

^ Mass. Pict., Ill, 5, and IV, 1 ; Matthias and Honoria. 

* Candy, p. 371, Antinous's surprising demand ; Lovers' Prog., p. 660, Clarange's 
renunciation of Olinda (cf. p. 657, where he cJaims her %'ehemently). Cf. also Cus. 
Count., p. 131, Guiomar's sensational relenting after her relentlessness. 

^ Of this there is no end in Flet. and Mass. The sudden falling in love is not so 
significant — that is commoner in lit. generally and is to be found in Beau. (A'. A'. A'.. 
Tigraties) ; but such headlong plunges from love into jealousy as Demetrius's, 
Gomera's, or, above all, Theodosius's, are peculiar to them. (Hum. Lieut., IV, 8 : 
Malta, III, 2 ; Emfi. East, IV, 5.) 

^ I do not count the repentances and confessions of the finale, which are but too 
common. — See Wife Month, IV, 3, p. 583, "Come home again, my frighted faith 
my virtue," etc. : Valent., V, 3, where Maximus in one speech turns villain ; False 
One, IV, 3, end, .Septimius's 1)acksliding ; Pict., Ill, 6, end, "Chastity, Thou only 
art a name, and I renounce thee! " — See. too, the many conversions, suddenly and 
mechanically brought about : that of Lelia, the strumpet, in the Captain, of Quisara 
in fsl. Prin. (V, 2), of Donusa in the Ren., and of Athenais in F.tnp. Fast. 

"• So, in example quoted in note 6 above from Wife Month, it is hard to decide 
■whether she had been only dis.sembling ; so, m Lovers' Prog., it is hard to decide 
whether C. had the intention of giving Olinda up at the beginning of his game. 

* Most of the turns must be interpreted as dissemblings,— tricks to try one, etc.,— 
but practised without warning to the spectator. Such are A'. Malta, II, 3, Miranda 
(cf. II, 5) ; III, 4. Mir. persuading Lucinda ; Faith Fr., II, 1, Tit. scolding Ruf. ; II, 
2, Armanus suing for Philadelphia's love; I'alcnt., V, 6f, Eudoxia acceding to 
Maximus's suit ; Wont. Pleased, III, 1, Belvidere siding with her mother ; Beg. Bush, 
I, 2, Wolfort's repentance; IV, 4, Hubert dissembling with Hemp. ; L. F. L., V, 1, 
Dinant's threatening Lamira ; IVife Month. I, 1, Evanthe triumphing over Maria; 
Hon. Man's Fort., I, 3, Montague persuading the Duchess; II, 2, Dubois; III, 3, 
lyamira's roughness with Mont. ; V, 3, where it appears that all Charlotte's wooing 

178 



outcome instead of the beginning), false reports ^ which affect the 
action, blood}', oracular commands to be fulfilled by the aid of soph- 
istr}' 2 or startling tricks of logic and word-play, ^ false foreshadowings 
or auguries which bear both actor and spectator in hand,^ and mock 
events of signal importance like death, stabbing, or shooting. ■" The 
nature and purpose of these is like that of the turns of character : 
both sorts are unjustifiable surprises and cheats plaj'ed upon the spec- 
tator, both are made to add — beyond the condition of things in 
Beaumont and Fletcher — to the stir on the stage, to the number and 
piquancy of situations. 

Even in the romances there is the germ of this. Beaumont (or 

Beaumont and Fletcher if you please) seeks sensation sand does violence 
to character, but he plays no hoaxes and effects no disappointing 



was as a proxy ; A/otis. Tkoni., Ill, 1, Cellide's changes with Francisco ; Love's Pile., 
where dissembling abounds ; most of the instances cited above, etc., Mass. : P. L., 
Ill, 3, Bellisant yielding to Clar., etc. But many of these dissemblings are so 
sudden, so complete and perfect that they might just as well pass for the real thing, 
a " sudden alteration.'" Of this last there are some unmistakable instances : Doub. 
Marr., Ill, 3, where Virolet, hitherto infatuated with his new love, now that he 
has won her abruptly rejects her; see p. 178, above, note 4, Guiomar ; note 1, 
l,isander, etc. See Pict., IV, 1, Honoria's change, and IV, 1 and 4, Matthias's ; Bash. 
Lov., IV, 1, Lorenzo's " Stay, I feel A sudden alteration " ; ref. in note 2 above. — 
Of the same general dramatic effect, though without the abrupt break in character, 
are the frequent unjustified shiftings of the persons of the drama from the one side 
to the other, from the good to the bad. .See esp. in Fair Maid the changes of 
Baptista : in I, 3, he commands his son in indignation to beg Alberto's pardon at 
any cost ; in II, 3. he is going to revenge his .son's wrongs on Alberto, his son 
Cesario, and his whole family ; in III, 2, at close of the trial, he and his son suddenly 
vow constant friendship with Cesario and ' make a scene ' ; in the next scene and 
thereafter, without any explanation, he and his son are again at enmity with 
Alberto and Cesario. And see in Isl. Prin. how we are led, bj' the prai.ses of her at 
every hand and by her demeanor at her first appearance, to think Quisara a blame- 
less character, and find her .shortly instigating a murder. 

' Sc^ Lov. Prog., II, 4, report of death of duellists; IV, 4, of Clarange's death ; 
K. Malta, IV, 1, of Oriana's death; Cus. Count.. II, 4, of Duarte's death Emp. of 
East, V, 2 — of Paulinus's death. — All of these deceive the spectator as well as the 
persons of the drama ; that is to be understood in all this discussion. 

' .See Fair Maid, II, 1, p. 362, Alberto's command, which seems inevitable, but 
which Cesario wrests. 

' .See Maid Mill, IV, 2, Bellides's challenge — to be friends ; ib., p. 598, Bustopha's 
tricks. 

* Sea-Voy., V, 4, the sensational altar and horrid music portending death ; Ren., 
V, 3, p. 120. 

" K. Malta, III, 2, and IV, 2, Oriana's ; Mad Lover, V, 4, Polydore's : P. L.. V, 1, 
Montrose's ; not to mention comedies like Woman's Prize and Nisht-Walker. 
In some cases, as this last, the deception is intended by the person himself, and the 
turn of plot becomes one of character. Hon. Man. Fort.. IV, 2, pp. 492, 493. the mock 
stabbing and shooting. 

179 



surprises.' The effect sought in the hiter turns is the sharp dramatic 
reversal, and nothing is commoner in Beaumont than reversals; but 
his are fair and square — reversals brought a1)Out by manipulation of 
plot, cunning, but plain as day, — not by wrenches of character and 
foul play with the audience. If Philaster is minded to be temperate 
and just, that moment he must, of all things, set eyes on Bellario 
bending over Arethusa : a storm follows ; there is a reversal and sen- 
sation, but by straightforward means.- Or his characters do extreme 
and sudden things, — draw, challenge, offer to kill themselves, or 
hurl a person into prison before any reason appears.^ Or, where 
there is a mystery to di.sclose, they vouchsafe for a time only laconic, 
thrilling enigmas and paradoxes.' But there always is a rea.son, a 
di.sclosure, and it is not long withheld. The bark of Philaster and 
Arbaces may be worse than their bite — their fury greater than their 
disclosures, — but the one is not an empty shock of surprise nor the 
other a gullery. They serve to rouse, and appease, suspense. There 
are, indeed, some downright breaches done to character in the 
romances — incredible reconciliations or conversions. But they are 
few; they are not for this particular situation's sake but for plot; 
and they are not thrown into relief, but justified (as far as may be) or 
glozed over. Instances are Thierry's being led, through Brunhalt's 
lie, to condone the death of Theodoret, his brother, at her hand, that 
she may continue her intrigue '' ; the smoothing-over of the enmity 
between Philaster and the king, to lead to the happy denouement " 
just at hand ; and Melantius's bullying of Evadne into contrition 
and vengeance (which has even been admired for its psychology), 



' The mock stabhini? and shootiiiKT above, however (p. 118, note 2), is in the Hon. 
Man's Fort., a play in which Hcau. is held to have some share. 

" Phil., IV. 3. — Of such sharp, but jiistifiable, reversals there is plenty, of course, 
in the later plays of Flet. and Mass. See a striking one in Pict., IV, 1, where 
Matthias looks at the picture. But, though not unknown to Shak. (R. <Sf J., V, 1), 
they are to Web. up to this Period. .See Honvile's entry at the moment of I,essing- 
hara's despair, C. C, 21, and below, the comic rever.sals, p. 185. They are further 
evidence of at least a IJ. & \>. influence, if not of the h'letcherian alone. 

* Often, indeed, the rea.son is clear at the start, and the rash activity only makes 
■a natural complication to .solve, when swords are b.ire. So M. Tr., Ill, 2, p. 14 a. 

But often (as in this very .sc, pp. 14 a and b, Amintor) the character insists on action 
first, explanation afterward : here, only after seven speeches do we learn the motive. 
Cf. Arbaces's wild, enigmatic deportment on laying eyes on Panthea, A'. N. A'., Ill, 
1. — Tliere is nothing of this sort, of course, in the older drama, as Shak. 

* See Kvadne's cold, thrusting speeches in M. Tr., II, 1 ; Arethusa's tantalizing 
coyness, Phil., I, 2 ; Gobrias's di.sclosures, K. N. K., V, 4. 

' Thier. & Theod., p. 417. Very discordant with Thierry's kindliness toward his 
brother. See p. 409 b, etc. 

* Phil., V, 3, end. 

180 



to make way for the very telling situations which ensue.' So, too, 
with the few dissemblings and deceits practised : they are purely for 
construction and plot's sake, and are either announced to the spec- 
tator at the time or are of themselves perfectly apparent.'- Of real 
breaches in character, then, Beaumont and Fletcher make, when they 
perpetrate them, no sensational capital, — but only (in a fair way; of 
manoeuvers of "business" and dialogue, by way of attaining effects 

of suspense ^. 

Of this clap-trap of Fletcher's Webster has plenty. He has perhaps 
even some of the Beaumontesque sensations. Bonvile turns the tables 
well enough by suddenly defying Lessingham, though he has a poor 
reason to give for it and he gives it rather promptly • ; but breaches 
done to character are here not glozed over, nor are dissemblings 
intimated to the audience, nor are there any tantalizing, enigmatical 
disclosures. Webster has felt the touch of Fletcher. As deceptive to 
both actor and spectator, and as sen.sational, as any of Fletcher's, are 
Bonvile's dissembling with Clare and Jolenta's with Romelio '' ; and, 
though he has no deliberate, formal renunciations of good or evil, 
those of his turns which are made in all sincerity, such as Clare's 
rejoicing at Bonvile's death'' or Jolenta's transference of affection to 
Ercole," are almost as abrupt and unnatural.* And there are 
tricks of construction, besides. There are ambiguous commands and 



» M. Tr., IV, 1. 

* Phi!., p. 36, Dion's lie ; p. 44, Arethusa's ; Thier. & Theod., p. 420, Martell's ; p. 
409b, Thierry's roughness; Cup. Rev., pp. 386-7, Leucippus's ; Thier. db" Theod., v. 
417, Hnnihalt's, where, though not explicitly avowed, all is plain to the spectator. 

' What is said of the work of U. & F. means, as always in this discussion, only 
the romances (see above, p. 172). Purely comic work, of course, though of so early a 
date and so certainly Beaumont's a.s the IVoman Hater and Burning Pestle, cannot 
be considered ; for there, in the midst of " humorous " and comic extravagance, we 
must expect starts and inconsistencies. And to include any of the other, later plays 
in which Beau, may have had a share, — the fC. of Malta, the Hon. Man. Fort., the 
Captaiti, ar\A the rest, — with all their problems of date and authorship to settle, 
would in a work of these limits be impossible. At any rate, my contention is only 
that Web. imitated the later, the iHetcherian type. Now in the later partnership 
plays, as all will admit, Flet. had the main share, and they belong in all particu- 
lars to the type as I have sketched it. The romances, on the other hand, are dom- 
inated by Beau. 

* C. C. p. 48. * C. C, p. 75 ; D. L. C. 62-3. 

* C. C, 70. She had just lamented it ; and has no reason for the change. 
' D. L. C, 65. One may suppose that Jolenta changes out of jealousy. 

* Others are: D. L. C, 118, Romelio's longing for the churchman, etc., after his 
cynical, boorish rejection of him on pp. 115, 116; A. & V., 153, Virg.'s sudden 
tuni against his soldiers ; 201, his stabbing without a word of warning and with a 
play on words ; C. C, 69, Clare's wheeling about ; 70, " Why now sir, I do love you," 
etc. ; 75-6, Clare's hate ; 72, Bonvile's hate or jealousy. 

181 



messages,' with various juggling interpretations. There are tricks 
played with words and logic, '^ and even purely dramatic complica- 
tions ^ solved by them. There is one false report of a hero's death, 
made merely for the sensation, and a dirge and sinister forebodings 
for a man who conies off hale and hearty. ^ The whole round, then, 
of Fletcher's sensational artifices is represented in Webster's last 
three plays.'' 

Of such tricks and clap-trap there is practically nothing in Webster's 
previous work. True, there is a deceptive, wretched sophism tossed 
back by Lodovico at Giovanni, ''' and there are sensations like Camilla's 
rushing at I'laniineo sword in hand and Flamineo's later pretense at 
dying.' But no more ; and even these, as we were disposed to think, 
are traces of the incipient influence " of Beaumont and Fletcher. 

The Comic Ei.kment. 
As we should be led by the preceding investigation to expect, the 
comic element of this class of tragi-comedy inheres in the Action. It 
lies, not in the conception of human character, but in the play of dia- 
logue, the business and by-play, the incidents and situations. There 



' Jolenta's message to Krcole, probably designed to mislead and so bring about 
this good situation, D. I,. C, 107-8 ; Clare's ambiKUous command, interpreted so dif- 
ferently by henself and the young men. .See above, p 165. 

' C. C, 47, privy coat; 48-9, interpretation of command and play on the notion 
"dead friend " ; 87, wounded ; 89, give ground ; A. & V.. 132, Appius's play on the 
word " banish " ; 207, Virg.'s "surrender " ; D. I.. C, 107, " begot by her brother," in 
conformity to her promise, p. 65. 

^ C. C. 49, 87, 89. ■* £>. L. C. 114-15. 

° It must be observed, however, that some of the abruptness in these plays is not 
new, is due only to that crabbedness and dearth of rhetoric, and to that neglect of 
motivation, we noted in the revenge-plays. Klamineo kills his brother without 
wasting words {IV. D., p. 108) : this, too, is a sensation and surprise. But mark 
that with Virginius there is a technical advance. Flamineo when last on the 
stage had quarreled with and challenged his brother ; he now rushes in and slays 
him. Virg. remains throughout on the stage ; speaks often, utters a long last fare- 
well, and never hints directly or aside what he is about to do : the slaying comes, 
though a shocking surprise, as a fine stage-climax. Another point: most of the 
turns in these late plays of Web. lack such climactic effect. Of Flet. and Mass.. on 
the other hand, it is a characteristic ; it is their way of redeeming the loss in sus- 
pense and mystery which the surprise method entails. Clarange's generosity 
comes as the striking clo.se to a rather extended, evidently selfish, intrigue ; so with 
Antinous'sin Candy (see above, p. 178, note 4) ; so with Virolet's rejection of Martia 
in Doub. Mar7\, Guiomar's marrying Rutilio in Cust. Count., etc., etc. Compared 
with such construction, Web.'s use of turns, as in C. C, 69-71, is decidedly jerky, 
inartistic. Yet we remember that just now, in the su.spense of the law-case and of 
the meeting of L,essingham with Ronvile, he was learning h\s first lessons in the 
subtle groui)ing of events. 

" IV.D.,1'^2. " Lod. By thine." eiQ. 

' JV. D.. 109, 134-5. ■ .See above, p. 118. 

182 



is little humor, much wit, and — thanks to the abundant business, the 
varied, rapid complications and resolutions, the turns, quirks, and 
tricks of construction — a great number of comic doings and changes. 
This sort of comedy is practicallj' Fletcher's creation ; it is not to be 
found, at any rate, in Beaumont. Beaumont's (and Shakspere's, too), 
had been a comedy of character, of humor ; and whenever the comedy 
was shifted into the business or construction proper, it turned 
out little less than buffoonery, horse-play, or mere imitation of the 
ancients. The dramaturgic sense had not yet been sufficiently devel- 
oped and refined to invent comic incident much more subtle than 
cudgellings of cowards and blind-man's-buff tricks, or to bring about 
those swift, significant combinations, reversals, and diversions which 
make the light and airy comedy of Fletcher.^ Not that this is the 
whole of Fletcher's comic sphere. He has plenty of comic character- 
ization, too, — for instance, those freaks of comic extravagance so char- 
acteristic of him, the combative non-combatant Lawyer La Writ, the 
brave coward the Humourous Lieutenant, as well as the steady 
"humors " of the coward, the angry man, or the fussy man, — and he 
reinstated the old-fashioned fool and clown. But even in these it is 
interesting to discover, on analysis, how much of the comic effect is 
really expressed by the situations, the incidents, and the suggested 
business : how La Writ or Galoshio in order to be laughable must be 
pictured by the reader on the stage, ^ and how often their speeches are 
funn\' because pat or surprising, ' and, detached, are nowise so signifi- 
cant or enjoyable as Falstaff's or Dogberry's are. Indeed, the treat- 
ment of the clown in Fletcher's hands measures better than anything 
else the great change comedy undergoes in his hands : the clown 
(or fool) is no longer episodic, as all Shakspere's are, but has a 
real place among the dramatis personae and in the plot,* and, for 
comic effect, he depends no longer upon mere talk, but upon his doings 
on the stage in specific situations, — falling from a ladder at a pistol- 

' See for all this the IVoman Hater. Knight of the Biirnhig Pestle, the poltroons 
and braggarts Bessus, Protaldy, Pharamond in the romances, and the rough treat- 
ment they undergo. (I do not mean to imply that Klet. had no hand in the comedy 
of characters just mentioned ; it is enough, for my purposes, that this sort of thing 
hardly appears in the later plays.) 

* .See L. F. L., II, 1 and 2 ; Nice Val.. Ill, 1 and 2. 

' The patness of a remark like the 3 Gent's, Pilg.. Ill, 6, p. 605, as in the mad- 
house the \-isitor Pedro, the Pilgrim, hearing and seeing Alinda, cries, " O my 
soul ! " — ■■ What fit 's this ? The Pilgrim s off the hooks too ! " : or surprises .such 
as Bustophas {Maid Mill, IV, 2, p. 598 a) in the startling pauses to his tale. 

* As appears especially in the Fool's appearing as fool, not merely with master or 
mistress, but with any of the characters. See, on this and the whole subject, 
Eckhardt, Lust. Person, 295 f. 

183 



shot unwounded, kicking a still more cowardly master, lugging in the 
heavy dinner, scared to death in the forest, or struggling in vain to 
extricate himself from his role in the antimasque when it comes to a 
matter of realitv. ' Hut comic effect is with Fletcher not the business 
of any one character, whether freak or fool : it is almost purely objec- 
tive, a matter of complication and resolution, a comic surprise. It 
maybe a sudden turning of the tables on the hero or his enemies, or a 
bugaboo scare put to flight, or a death from which one rises and takes 
to his legs, or a sudden discovery of a disguise or dissipation of an 
illusion.^ Action, then, stage-fitness, deft use and manipulation of 
speciallj- histrionic and scenic (rather than poetic) means, distinguish 
the Fletcherian comic art. 

Of this sort of thing there had hitherto been nothing in Webster ' : 
the DeviVs Law-Case and the Cure for a Ctickohi show the only 
examples. In the foritier pla\- the comedy (what there is in that sour 
and sombre play) is still somewhat one of character, as in the remarks 
of the lawyer's clerk, Sanitonella, and of the waiting-woman. But 
the sudden changes in point of view wrought upon the surgeons, and 
at another time upon Contilupo, by the glitter of gold,"' are, though 
well-worn motives, examples of objective, acting comedy, and the 
sensational disclosure in the law-case (to the delight of his scapegrace 
son, and to the discomfiture of the woman and her party) of the exem- 
plary judge himself as the putative co-respondent, is, technicalh- at 
least, altogether in the spirit of Fletcher. For not onlv are there comic 
instances in Fletcher of the efficaciousness of gold with men's memo- 
ries or opinions (most notable of which is that delightful one in the 
Spanish Curate^), and abundant sensational disclosures of identity or 
discoveries of disguise just at the critical moment, where they solve 
the complication," but (what is more important) the comic effect is in 
both cases produced in the .same way as the Fletcherian, — by stage- 
craft rather than by characterization , by quick and deft change in the 
one case, by mystery, suspense, and skillful clapping together of 
incongruities in the climax, in the other. 



' Soto in IVom. Pleased, I, 3 ; Galoshio in Nue Vol.. Ill, 2 ; Shorthosein IVil with- 
out Money, IV, 5 ; Boor in Bes- Bush, V, 1 ; Bustopha in Maid Mill, II, 2. 

^ See the examples below, p. 186. 

" The citizen plays, a.s we have .seen , are fhoroug-hly Dekker'.s ; and the comic 
effect ill them depends on humor of character, tricks pre-announced, boisterous busi- 
ness like the trouncing of the Bawd and locking up of Bellamont, not on deft, 
vivacious handlinsj of the action. — In the subsequent discussion, the D. L. C, 
though itself influenced by I'let., has to stand, in default of any purely Websterian 
comedy, as a standard to measure the Flet. influence in the later C. C. 

* D. L. C, pp. 58, 78. '11,1, Leandro with L,opez and Diego. 

* I'l^om. Pleased, V, 2, Claudio's ; Cus. Count., V, 5, Duarte's, etc. 

184 



It is only in the Cure for a Cuckold, however, that the Fletcherian 
comic art conies fully into pla\'. While the young tyro Rochfield — the 
"honest thief" — is trying gently to disengage Annabel's bracelets 
from her arms, she draws his sword. ' Here there is hardly any humor 
of character ; the comic effect (enhanced, indeed, by such considera- 
tions as that of the appropriateness of the slip in a young gentleman 
committing his first theft upon a handsome young woman) lies in the 
sudden, laughable reversal, and in the lively business and by-play 
involved. The same is to be said of a later scene, at Annabel's house. 
When Rochfield hesitates to accept the gold, she calls her father and 
friends, who had just gone out. He thinks, and we think, she is 
about to divulge his attempt at robbery : she only begs them to wel- 
come her friend.- Here again the fun lies all in the action — the 
momentarily serious complication, quickly, happily resolved — and in 
the chance given for lively, amusing acting on the part of the arch 
Annabel, concerned old father, and shaking thief. It is just such a 
situation as one of Fletcher's — now serious, now comic: it has the 
true light and graceful stage-fun, which is but suggested in the printed 
page and lacks any specially human character or meaning. Both 
situations, indeed, may have been borrowed from him : in the Elder 
Brother -^ there is a disarming and a comic turning of the tables, and 
in the Spanish Curate ^ there is a similar, harmless scare given a 
suitor when Amaranta calls her husband. 

But a matter of borrowing is of less importance : the main thing is, 
that the spirit of Fletcher, the great comic poet, is fallen on Webster, 
the great tragic poet, — the gift for comedy in incident and situation. 
For, that this is true these last instances in the Cure for a Cuckola 
seem to me to prove. The sourness, the grimness, the Marstonian 
tone, is gone ; something of the deftness and gaiety of Fletcher — the 
exuberance and hilarity of fancy were too much for Webster — has 
come. In the DeviV s Laiv-Case the comic success of the author was 
perhaps greater in the character portrayed — the humorous disgust of 
the lawyer's clerk, 

Uds foot, we are spoiled : 

Why my client 's proved an honest woman,* — 

than in the stage sensation just then attained : in the Cure for a Cuck- 
old it is all in the situations, in his stagecraft. vSo with Fletcher in 



' C.C.. 29. 

^ C. C, 41-2. Web. characteristically repeats this motive. See p. 40, Annabel and 
Rochfort. 
' IV, 3. Cf. JHu/e a Wife, V, 4, Estifania showing- a pistol. 
■* III, 4. The situation and the handling are practically identical. 
* D. L. C, 98. 

185 



dozens of situations : as when Lurcher suddenh' presents his astonished 
mistress to his astonished friend Wildbrain ' ; or when, equalh' aston- 
ished, Clereniont meets his terror of a bedfellow face to face - ; or 
when destitute Valentine bursts upon the gaze of his censors in fresh 
finery ^ ; or when the shrew-tamer, at being mourned by his mate for 
his life, not his death, rises groaning from the bier * ; or when Old- 
craft overreaches himself in the artfulness of his presenting Sir 
Gregory ^ ; or when Bustopha struggles in vain to make it clear that 
the play is over and real life begun.'' Here is the same delight in 
abstract and impersonal comedy, as we might call it, — the comedy of 
incident and situation, — and the same quick alternation of the comi- 
cal with the serious. 

Characters. 

The characters are Fletcherian. The}'- belong to Fletcher's conven- 
tionalized t3'pes of ladies, gentlemen, and gallants, — the slavish 
young lover as hero, the cruel mistress as heroine, the merrj^ old man 
as uncle or father, and the faithful-faithless friend." So at least in 
the Cure for a Cuckold. In the Laiv-Case there is still attention given 
to original characterization, as in the scoundrelly, cvnical, and melan- 
choly Romelio, the droll laAvyer's clerk Sanitonella, and the waiting- 
woman ; though even here, perhaps, something of the Fletcherian 
appears in the characters of the young men and women, Contarino 
and Frcole, Jolenta and Angiolella. Something of it appears, too, in 
Appius and Virginia ; Virginius, as we shall see, is one of Fletcher's 
blunt and noble soldiers, a replica of Archas * : but what other char- 
acters are distinct enough to deserve the name are, though conven- 
tional enough (as Numitorius, who represents the caution of old 
age), at the same time stereotj'ped, colorless, not specially of the 
stamp of Fletcher. 

What are these types (new to Webster every one) , as best exempli- 
fied in the Cure for a Cuckold? 

First, there is the hero, a young lover (as always in Fletcher and 
Massinger, for the Lears, the Macbeths, and even the Othellos, as 



' Night Walker, V, 1. ' iVit 'cithotit Money , IV, 1. 

"^ L. F. L., Ill, 3, p. 426b. " Woman's Prize, V, 4. 

* in/ at Se^'eral Weap., I, 1, p. 331. Oldcraft introduces Cuniiingrham to his niece 
as her future husband, then Sir Gregory Fop, to deliKht her by the contrast. The 
contrast works in the opposite way ; the niece thinks ciuite innocentl.\-, and to Old- 
craft's despair, that it is no2v that her uncle is joking. 

^ Maid Mill, II, 2, p. 589. Cf., for quick alternation of comical and serious, 
Bustopha's scaring of old Julio, IV, 2, p. 598. 

' There are a few constantly repeated types in the B. & F. romances (see Thorn- 
dike, chap, vii), but these of the Flet. and Mass. tragi-comedies are somewhat 
different. * See below, p. 192, note. 

186 



heroes, have left the stage for good) who slavishly worships and obeys 
his mistress, and yet, just after he has won her favor, falls into a 
furious jealousy of her. As loud as were his praises of her and her 
sex at the beginning, are his railings at the end. He served her then, 
now he goes about to injure her. He was the hero, now he is almost 
a villain. Such are Demetrius and Gomera in Fletcher ' ; such, more 
exactly, Leosthenes, Matthias, Theodosius, and Sforza in Massinger.^ 
Such, with less of fur}' and rhetoric, is Webster's Lessingham.'* 

Then, there is the imperious heroine, scornful and " cruel" it may 
be, or proud and wayward, who hates a lover on principle, on the one 
hand, or who will tolerate no jealousy, domination, or rivalry, on the 
other. Of the one sort is Webster's Clare, of the other his Annabel. 
Such are the Quisara, Calis, vScornful Lady, and Celia of Fletcher, and 
the Marcelia, Leonora, Cleora, Honoria, and Almira of Massinger.'* 

Thirdly, there is the merry old man (Woodroff in the Cure for a 
Cuckold), father or uncle of the young folk and much interested in 
their pleasures, who is equally impetuous in merriment, anger, hospi- 
tality, or bounty. He speaks fondly of his own youth, and considers 
himself youthful still. His manner is blunt and his jokes coarse. 
Such are Miramont and Dorilaus in Fletcher, ^ and Durazzo and 
Eubulus in Massinger.^ 



' H7im. Lieut., IV, 8 ; K. Malta, III, 2. 

^ Bond., IV, 3 ; Pict., IV, 1 ; Emp. East, IV, 5 ; Milan, III, 3. As in C. C, jealousy is 
a favorite motive to give a further diversion to the action just at the point where it 
seemed to be coming to a happy end. I,ike l,ess. all of these sorry heroes burst 
wildly, completely into jealousy as the plot demands (in l,eosthenes, indeed, Mass. 
shows beforehand jealousy of temperament): all curse the sex, and wonder that any 
should " trust a woman." (C C, 71.) 

^ lyCSS.'s stronger motive, at p. 71 and thereafter, is not horror at Clare's sin but 
jealousy of Bonvile. Flet.'s jealous heroes do not, indeed, enter upon a career of 
base intrigue ; their repentance conies soon. But Flet. has quite as many cases of 
heroes and heroines turning villain. .See the princess Quisara in Isl. Prtn., who, 
after all the fuss about her at the start, turns murderess (III, 1); the dastardly 
changes in Cesario {Fair Maid) , etc. 

* Of the scornful sort, who impose cruel or bloody commands like Clare's, are 
Quisara in Isl. Prin., Ill, 1, Calis in Mad Lover, I, 2, L,ady in Scorn. Lady, I, 1. Leo- 
nora in P. L., II, 2 ; of the wayward sort, who meet signs of jealousy with an aside, 
"ill fit you" {HjiM. Lieut., p. 257 ; Bond., p. 92), and an aggravating demeanor such as 
Annabel's, are Celia in Hum. Lieut., IV, 8, Cleora in Bond., IV, 3, Marcelia in Milan, 
IV, 3. Of the same stripe as these last are Honoria in Pict., •who deliberately set 
out to conquer the man who praised his wife above her, and Almira in I'ery li'oni., 
who rejected one suitor with all manner of abuse, and later, when he appeared dis- 
guised as a Turkish slave, fell boundlessly in love with him. And all these are 
monsters of caprice or cruelty ; though heroines, mere puppets of the plot. 

° Eld. Bra., Lovers' Prog., passim. 

" Guardian, Pict., passim. Eubulus is, however, only a counsellor in the court, not 
a relative. Flet. has plenty of bluff " merry men " in his plays, as the Master in the 
Sea-Voyage, Norandine in K. Malta. 

187 



Finally, there is the group of the hero's friends (the four gallants 
Raymond, Eustace, Lionel, and Grover, in the Cure for a Cuckold)^ 
who take no part in the play, as one may say, for themselves. This 
is an institution of the Beaumont and Fletcher romances, continued 
and further developed by Fletcher and Massinger. The persons of the 
group are generally of the same rank as the hero (when he is not king 
or prince) — gentlemen, gallants, captains, or, if the scene be at court, 
courtiers or lords. Under this general designation they are bracketed 
together as one in the dramatis personae ^ ; — a matter not without 
significance, for they enter together, go out together, often talk together 
alone. They are always named (not numbered, as First Lord, Second 
Gentleman), and often have in themselves some noticeable individu- 
ality ; but in their sympathies, their moral bias, thej' are one. They 
are the chorus of the play. They explain the opening situation, give 
an inkling of the character of the persons of the drama, or describe 
them, and sympathize with, sometimes help, the hero. But their 
activity is a minor one — the running of errands, the raising of 
insurrections off the stage, the furnishing of information to the 
characters and the audience. Nothing happens to them, they neither 
marry nor die. They serve these merely functional ends, and, by 
their lively conversation, their banter and gossip, furnish atmos- 
phere and Vjackground to the drama. As used in the Cure for a 
Cuckold, such a group is something new in Webster : Roderigo and 
Grisolan in Jl/alji, and Antonelli and Gasparo in the White Devil, are 
not friends of leading characters, but dependants ; and the part they 
fill is purely mechanical, "supernumerary." In Fletcher it is com- 
mon, and it is to be found in Massinger. - 



' This of itself determines nothing : groups of the sort we speak of are always 
bracketed, but so are the true heroes (or scovnidrels) in P. A. 

'^ Most often, the group is made up of three. It often has at the beginning to give 
the audience the key to the remarkable situation on which the play is based, as in 
Cup. Rev., I, 1, Dorialus, Agenor, and Nisus before the entry of the principal per- 
sons (cf. C. C, I, 1, p. 12) ; or to describe the bent and bias of the characters, as in 
Phil., I, 1, Dion, Clereniont, and Thrasilene, after entry of King, rharamond, etc. 
This description of the moral character of the persons of the drama falls away 
decidedly in the later playsCsee above, p. 173) ; yet in U'iff Month there is an instance. — 
A list of these groups follows : Sp. Cur. — Angelo, Milanes, and Arsenio ; Coxcomb — 
Uberto, Pedro, Silvio, " three merry Gentlemen, Friends to Ricardo " ; Maid in Mill 
— Gostanzo, Geraldo, Philippo, " three Gentlemen, Friends to Julio " ; Ciip. Rev. and 
/%z7.. see above ; Mad Lovet — Kumenes, Polybius, and Pelius, "three Captains"; 
Pilg. — Curio, Seberto, "friends to Alphonso " ; Wife Month — Camillo, Cleanthes, 
Menallo, "three honest Court I,ords " ; Corinth — Neanthes Sosicles, Eraton (but 
they sympathize with and help the villain prince). Mass.'s Guardian — Camillo, 
I,entulo, Donato, "three Neapolitan gentlemen." 

188 



STYI.E AND Metre. 
Nor is Fletcher's or Massinger's influence lacking in Webster's style 
and metre ; yet (as with Shakspere in his Beaumont and Fletcher 
period^) less markedly than in characterization and plot' — in a 
vaguer, and often negative, way. Under it Webster loses in this Period 
his wealth of figure and reflection and his 'frequency of sentence,' 
which had clogged the action, and takes on something of the jejune- 
ness and colorlessness of Massinger. But while he loses he some ways 
gains. He gets rid of the old crabbedness and obscxtrity , of the old bouts 
at baiting and abuse, - and cultivates Massinger's perspicuous eloquence 
and declamatory ring. The eloquent, tender peal of Lessingham's 

speech to Bonvile 

O ray friend, 
The noblest ever man had ! etc' 

and of Virginius's last farewell,* the ease of transition and variety of 
movement of the first dialogue between Clare and Lessingham, ■' are 
like nothing else in Webster, and are echoes of Fletcher and Massinger. 
Yet, though new in Webster, they are his own ; and though they echo 
the masters of the day, they show none of their special tricks and 
mannerisms. Webster follows the lead of the dramatic rhetoricians 
of his day after his own fashion . 

The same is to be said of his metre. Webster does not cultivate the 
two-word feminine ending and end-stopt line * of Fletcher, any more 
than did Shakspere before him, or the weak ending and run-on line ' 
of Massinger : he follows these poets only in the general way of avoid- 
ing prose and rime, ' and of smoothing ofl his verse. He has least 



^ See Thorn., /«/"., B. & F., pp. 142-5. — Perhaps in the matter of easier dramatic 
sentence-form (for the old oratorical one) , in increase of colloquialisms, parentheses, 
feminine endings, but hardly in more. 

'^ To be found in every play of Webster's unaided work but the C. C. See p. 141. 

" C. C. p. 45. 

* D. L. C, pp. 200-1. 

* C. C, 9-11. Cf. with this conversations of somewhat similar theme and manner 
in Mass.'s yery IVom., I, 1, pp. 336-7 ; Flet.'s Fair Maid, I, 1, pp. 356-7. There is the 
same urbane manner, and easy flow and transition. Contr. D. L. C, III, 3, where 
the rough rhythm, the abrupt, crabbed speech and retort of Alalfi yet persist. 

® Flet. has 40 5^ fem. endings, 20 fo enjambement (Schipper, II, p. 320 f) ; ace. to 
Boyle {Eng. Sitid., V, 87), 50-80/{ fem. endings. By two-word fem. endings, I mean 
such as told you, etc. .See .Schipper for an account of this in Flet. 

' Of run-on lines, Mass. has seldom less than 30 i, of light and weak endings, 5-7 5i, 
of fem. endings generally 40'!i. — Boyle, ib. 

" There is no prose in Flet.'s Rule a Wife, Hum. Lieut., Mad Lover, Loyal Sub. — 
Schipper, II, 324, 329. Even letters are often in verse, as in Lovers^ Prog., Maid Mill 
{Works, II, pp.583, 641) — Dagegen haben Mass. und Flet. in ihren spatern Dramen 
keine prosa, Boyle in Gelbke's Engl. BUhne, I, p. 31. 

189 



rime, least prose, least superfluous s\'llables and epical cesuras, in 
his latest plays ' ; — that is all tables and figures will show. And yet 



' No account of Web.'s development can be complete without some examination 
of his metre, but, as still more important matters have had to be excluded (see pref.), 
I have touched on it (as here and above, p. 113) only to illustrate purely literary 
matters. Moreover, a detailed investigation of it is already at hand, that of Meiners 
(Halle, 1893), which, though it is not even in a mechanical way satisfactory, labors 
for the most part only under difficulties which obstruct and invalidate any metrical 
research at this day. He uses an unedited, very inicertain text, much of which 
(as in Malfi), though printed by Hazlitt as verse, deserves (as by Vaughan) to be 
printed as prose ; he has no canons at all to guide him in the counting of the total 
number of lines (short lines of dialogue, which may or may not be conibinable into 
whole lines) , against which the percentages are to be reckoned ; nor has he any 
good canons for distinguishing run-on from end-stopt lines. As to these last, indeed 
(those of the St. Petersburg Shakspere Circle, Ens. Stud., Ill, 473 f). Dr. Meiners 
does much worse than to follow them, and arrives at such remarkable figures for 
€njambement in the W. D. as .85^, in Mai., \.1$, etc. ; but this is the sort of thing 
that will continue to occur and make investigations in Eng. metre almost worthless 
to any other than the investigator himself, until the rules given by the St. P. Circle 
— a step in the right direcion — have been amplified and modified to suit our needs. 
(See the strictures of G. Konig, Shakspere^s Vers., only he goes to the other extreme, 
and will have no rules.) 

I give a table below which shows W.'s development in the important metrical 
phenomena. The figures are my own, except when followed by an M. (Meiners), 
and are founded in each case on the examination of from 500 to 700 11. (short 11. 
covmted only when reconstructible into long 11., except when within the bounds of 
a speech of 5 accent verse), according to the size of scenes and acts. 





run-on 11. 


1. and 
weak 
end. 


ep. 
cesura. 


extra syll. 

excl. 

ep. ces. 


fem. end. 


ratio of 
two-word 

to 
total fem. 


rime. 


W.D. . . 


36.28% 


.32% M. 


2.88% M. 


18.6% 


31.4% M. 


10.84% 


4.5 % 


Mai. . . 


49.95% 


.95% M. 


5. %M. 


35.5% 


32.6% M. 


20. % 


2.1 % 


D. L. C. . 


35.8 % 


.76% M. 


5.5 % M. 


29.8% 


32.6% M. 


15.75% 


1.03% 


A. &. V. 


28.76% 


.53% M. 


1.5 % M. 


11.8% 


27.1% M. 


13.13% 


5.6% 


c.c. . . 


28.88% 


1.56% 


1.4% 


10.9% 


19.5% 


14.76% 


1.17% 


Prose: Most in Mai.; least in C. C. (W 


eb.'s part of course ; 


Rowley's is nearly 


all prose) ; ne.xt to the least in ^4 . cS" V. — 


Meiners (p. 38) says 


A.& V. has least. 


but he ignores C. C. altogether (v. infra) 


and the fact is that 


A.C2!' V. has solid 


prose in the clown and serving-men set 


'ues, while Web.'s C 


. C. has no prose 


passage beyond two lines in extent. 







Cf. Meiners's table. All the figures for the C. C. I have had to add, for he considers 
the play doubtful ; his figures for run-on 11. mean nothing to me ; and his figures 
for rime I have reduced by eliminating the "weak" (unaccented) rime (sick atid 

190 



there can be no doubt that it was the new, potent influence of the 
day, that of Fletcher and Massinger, which turned Webster's earlier 
asperity into verse so mellow as the first dialogue in the Cure for a 
Cuckold or that on the sands of Calais. 

Morals. 

Finally, Webster shows the baneful influence of the day — that of 
Fletcher and Massinger — in morals. Even in that sort of morals we 
immediately think of when the word is used in connection with litera- 
ture, Webster once in the Cure for a Cuckold^ sinks lower — nearer 
to Fletcher and Massinger — than at any other time. But this 
increased pruriency is only one phase of a deeper evil. The root 
of the matter is, that there is grown up in Fletcher and Massinger 
out of the life of the day (on the one hand) an indifference, as I have 
said, a purblindness to moral relations of any sort, except as the pro- 
prieties, the. expediencies ; and within their art (on the other hand), 
the baneful convention of the subservience of character to plot.' 
This latter, purely dramatic, esthetic, immorality appears, for instance, 
in ' ' bloody ' ' commands such as that of Leonora in the Parliament of 
Love, or of the Duchess in Women Pleased, or of Quisara in the 
Island Princess, or of Alberto in the Fair Maid of the Inn : for 
neither Fletcher nor Massinger nor anybody in their Caroline audi- 
ence approved of such things except as making situations in dramas. 
The real, ethical immorality (if I may use the expression) appears 
more unmistakably in what is not essential to plot, — in the view, con- 
stantly avowed or implied in these plays, that virtue is but credit 
and reputation, that any woman (and of course any man) may be 
persuaded, that one may talk and think as he pleases and yet be virtu- 
ous and the hero. 

The two influences react and shade into each other indistinguish- 
ably : what concerns us is the results. Moral forces are employed b}' 
Fletcher and Massinger, moral standards are observed, only when it 
suits the author's plan ; and then, in an empty, frivolous way. Crimes 
and criminal intents, conversions and repentances, are freely, irre- 
sponsibly used — like pigments — to vary and enliven the action. One 



physic, forego me and i>Uy, etc.), most of which in Web. (though not in Chapman) is 
purely accidental and unnoticeable. 

The remarkable increase in rime in A. c2f P'. may be due to the number of saws 
and apothegms (in which most of it occurs), or may be due to the example of 
Heywood in Lucrece. (See Sect. Ill, below.) But H. rimes very differently. 

' C. C, 74. It is the grosser in that it is conversation held between .some of the 
best characters. 

''Both sorts appear, of course, in the romances, but (see above, pp. 172-4, 179-80) 
in less gross form. 

191 



man may kill another and never bother to repent, ^ or repent in five 
minutes and pass for righteous.- Heroes rage in hypocritical fury 
against women whom they not even suspect of doing worse than they 
themselves ^ ; heroines who have committed adultery at heart are 
complacently pure.* And all are treated with no justice. The bad 
generally end by repenting and saving their skins, and — what is 
worse — the good by pardoning. 

The same words may be used of Webster's morality in this Period. 
In the earlier Period, as we have seen, it was he that infused a higher 
morality and a truer dramatic justice into the old, convention-ridden 
revenge-play. Now he weakens and conforms. Of the two heroines, 
Jolenta, out of jealousy of her mother, consents to own Romelio's 
bastard child as her own, and Clare commands her lover to commit 
murder and rejoices when she learns he has done so ; and the hero, 
Lessingham, undertakes to kill his dearest friend, and, when saved 
that, tries to destroy his happiness. As for the outcome, Lessingham 
and Clare perfunctorily repent ; Leonora, too, repents, — she who had 
tried to marry her daughter off to one she hated in order to keep her 
daughter's lover for herself, and revenged herself on her son by going 
to the lengths of perjury and robbery ; — Romelio, though a villain of 
the deepest dye, has only to restore stolen property and marry ; and 
Virginius, the child-slayer, relents toward the lustful tyrant when he 
has him in his power, and thinks on second trial he would do better. 
What a fall for the stern justicer of human error — of the folly of 
Antonio and the Duchess, of the crimes of Bosola and the Arragonian 
brethren, — thus to be plaj'ing with it as in a puppet-show ! ' 



^ Silvio in Worn. Pleased, I, 3, who thinks he has killed his friend Claiidio, and 
never bothers about it afterward. 

'^ The atrocious L,elia's indignant complacence : Captain, V, 5, p. 644, " I have a 
heart as pure as any woman's." 

^ See Matthias in Pict., IV, 1, in the midst of his futile intrigue with Honoria. 

■* Honoria and Sophia in Pict. ; Calista in Lovers' Pros. 

^ Some remaining points of similarity between W.'s plays and Flet.'s. In D. L. C. : 
analogues of the incident of Romelio's stabbing, cited above, pp. 154-5 : Romelio's 
appearing in the garb of a Jewish doctor before Contarino's surgeons with the pretense 
of a remedy, strikingly like a scene in Mass.'s Milan (D. L. C, pp. 53-6; Milan, V, 
2, p. 72); L,eonora's vying with her daughter for Contarino's favor, like Antigonus's 
with his son, in Hiim. Lieut. ; false report of the death of the hero after a duel like 
one in Lovers'' Prog., II, 4; trial by combat as d^noviement. like that in K. of 
Malta and Love's Cure ; Jolenta's revealing herself to her lover in masque-like verse 
at close of play, like Belvedere's in Worn. Pleased; etc. \\\ A. & V.: likeness 
between the rough, honest general Virginius, who brifags a false report of good 
treatment at hands of the authorities to the mutinying army, and toward it is relent- 
less, and the general, Archas, in the I^y. Sub., who does likewise, and, besides, is 
once at point of slaying his son (.4. & V., 151-6; Loy. Sub., IV, 7; cf. V, 6 and 7); 

192 



But he does not all descend ; it is only the esthetic immorality that 
he accepts. Dramatic injustice, and violent, irresponsible treatment 
of character — dissemblings, starts, conversions, relapses — he adopts 
as bound up inextricably with the Fletcherian style. Not so the 
supererogatory evil — the obscene prudery and polite obscenity, the 
shallow deference to ideals and frivolous C3'nicism, dashed from the 
lips of Fletcher's and Massinger's characters. Webster's speak foully, 
but straightforwardh' ; they do not cant. They forego the glittering 
phrases of chivalry ; they have no word to say of ' ' lawful pleasures ' ' 
and ' ' temperate flames " ^ ; they neither plume themselves on their 
virtue, nor canvass it in themselves or another ; they drop no hint of 
conceiving chastity and honor in mere terms of credit, reputation, 
or hearsay. Such lengths, fortunately, were j'et beyond Webster ; his 
truckling to Favor would not carry him so far. In the Devil's Law- 
Case he yet keeps much of his tragic dignity ; his Romelio meditates 
like his Bosola - ; and if there be a greater measure of cynicism and 
less of melancholy now in his irony, as he speaks of the heralds ■' 
laughing in their black raiment, or makes the waiting- woman, who 
has grown old together with her mistress ' talking nothing and doing 
less,' confess that they have spent their life 

in that which least concerns life, 
Only in putting on our clothes,* 

that is only natural now as he joins company with frivolous Fletcher 
and the court players. And in the Cure for a Cuckold, where he is 
more than ever a Fletcherian, he remonstrates faintly still : he has 
lost his old notions, he has taken up their colorless, conventional 
ones, but he eschews their specious ones. 

III. THE INFLUENCE OF SHAKSPERE AND HEYWOOD ON 
APPIUS AND VIRGINIA. 

Shakspere. 
The influence of Fletcher and Massinger was not the only one of 
this Period : Webster conformed with the present, but he reverenced 
the past ; and with as much academic research as that with which he 



introduction of sentimental ideas into prehistoric Rome, use of Marcus beyond 
authority as go-between (cf. Rufinus), like Faithful Friends. In C. C. : romantic 
story of a sea-fight told in Beg. Bush. IV, 3 (cf. C. C, 56-7), and the merry old 
man's impetuous anger against the impugner of his daughter's honor {Lov. Prog:., 
IV, 3, p. 653, and C. C, 88-9). In none of the above cases can W.'s indebtedness be 
proved : they serve only to show the general closeness of relation between his work 
at this tiipe and the fashionable Fletcherian drama. 

^ These and their equivalents common in Flet., above all in Mass. 

* See D. L. C, 47-8 and 114-15. ^ D. L. C, 47. * D. L.C., 74. 

193 



collected material for the fable of Appius and Virginia, he studied 
the early Roman plays for technique. In particular, those of Shaks- 
pere. The folio of 1623, there is every reason (as we shall see) to 
believe, had appeared, and madQ Julius Cersar and Coriolanus for the 
first time accessible in print. Diffident and timid in this his first 
attempt, Webster learned from these most famous models a technique, 
and a knack of dealing with Roman conditions, new to him but now 
old-fashioned. 

The most striking piece of imitation and borrowing is the mutiny- 
scene. There is no such thing in his authorities ; but Webster, as all 
his searching and delving shows, was gravelled for matter to fill out his 
five acts, and hit upon this in that other drama of early Rome, Corio- 
lanus. ^ In the case of Appius and Virginia it is soldiers mutinying 
in camp ^ ; in Coriolanus it is citizens within the walls : both mutiny 
on account of famine. The soldiers rail against their superiors for 
their luxurj' and usur}^, above all against Virginius ; the citizens, on 
quite the same score, against the patricians, above all Coriolanus. In 
the one case, Minutius enters to mollify them, and fails ; in the other, 
Menenius. Last, in both cases, comes the man they hate, the man 
they have vowed to kill, who cows them. The conduct of the dia- 
logue, moreover, is in both cases the same : — there are no names, but 
First Citizen, Second Citizen, and All or Ornnes ; and the First 
Citizen is in both cases a rude, loud-mouthed fellow who does the 
lion's share of the talking. ^ 

Never before had Webster tried to deal with masses of people, — 
mobs, mutinies, armies, or the like, — but in this play three times 
over ! * Surely this is through the influence of Shakspere, for he, 
above all other Elizabethan dramatists, whether in his Roman or in 
his other histories, abounds in them. Number, indeed, proves little 
as against method and spirit ; but it is just in this last that Webster 
follows him closest. He has taken over the spirit that prevails in the 
treatment of Jack Cade and his Kentishmen, and of the stinking, 
filthy, brutal mobs in Julius Ccesar and Coriolanus, though in the 
very teeth of Livy. Some excuse there was for painting the People 
black, with a high-flying patrician of Coriolanus's stamp on one's 
hands for hero : but with the tyrant Appius for villain there could be 
none. Evidently, it is the awe of Shakspere's name that has led 



* Cor.,\.\. "* A.& v.. II, 2. 

'There is another mutiny by which Web. may have 'been influenced, that in 
Flet.'s Bon., II, 1, p. 52. This is a mutiny of soldiers, at which brother-officers inter- 
cede for the repentant soldiers, as Minutius does with Virginius. No other points in 
common. And another in Loy. Sub., V, 6, see above, p. 192. * II, 2 ; IV, 2 ; V, 2 

194 



Webster thus to play history false. The Sabine question, constitutional 
rights, the cravings for freedom and the grievances of the Roman 
People never get voiced ; and Valerius and Horatius, the champions 
of liberty, sink away into names and supernumerary nothingness. 
Instead, the People appear as the "Roman iry," the "rabble," 
against the fickle favor of which even Appius, now no Patrician but 
an upstart ' demagogue, has cause to rail. Appius, after all, is made 
to meet his end like a "Roman gentleman," in intended contrast'-^ 
with his servant, who is bred from the base "rabble." Icilius, 
according to L,ivy very forward in the cause of the People, scorns it. 
Virginius, pointing to a lineage of eight hundred years, scouts a 
parvenu like Appius, whom the heralds have known but these eight 
months.^ And the "Roman fry" itself is made, like Shakspere's, 
cruel and fickle, boastful and cowardly, childishly, ludicrously igno- 
rant. * How, then, should Webster, who never before gave sign of 
specially aristocratic bent, have come to stray at this one point so far 
from his authoritj-, if not under the stress of some such great example? 

Another scene from Shakspere is the military parley."' This is old, 
goes back at least as far as/eroi/iino, and had been so long out of style 
that Webster would hardly have been prompted to use it now for the 
first time, were it not for its occurrence, twice ^ over, in a great Roman 
play such as Julius Ccrsar. One of these takes place between the 
opposing armies, the other between the friendly armies of Brutus and 
Cassius : either might serve as a model. Here, as in Webster, the 
two armies march on the stage ; the order to ' ' stand ' ' is given ; and 
the leaders step forth as representatives of either side to rail at each 
other. In the parlej' between Brutus and Cassius, moreover, it is 
angry friends that meet, and there is no final fling of defiance; — a 
situation more nearly like that in Webster. 

Still another sort of scene appears here for the first time, and under 
the influence of Shakspere. The Advocate scene just before the arrival 
of Virginius and his army, and the serving-men scene just before the 
trial of Virginia, in both of which information is given as to what has 



^ p. 158, " a petty lawyer t' other day," 199. 

i ^. d" F., 222 and 223. It is made very explicit. ^ P. 199. 

* That Web. had Shak.'s Roman citizens in mind appears from echoes like : Min. 
You wrong one of the honorablest commanders. Ontnes. Honorable commander ! 
Cf. the retort to Antony's words, /. C, III, 2, 158: Fourth Citizen. They were 
traitors : honorable men ! Another, perhaps, is the " hydra-headed multitude," p. 
217. Outside of W. it is a common expression, this and its variants " many-headed 
beast," etc., to be found in Flet., Chap., and Mass.; but probably in no play but 
Coriolanus does it appear thrice : III, 1, 93 ; II, 3, 18 ; IV, 1, 1-2. 

^ A. & v., V, 2. « J. C, IV, 2, 30 f, and sc. 3; V, 1, 20 f. 



195 



happened, fears and expectations are uttered as to what will happen, 
and onl}- subordinate characters take part, are both of a type to be 
found in Shakspere, ^ especially in his Roman plays. Besides, the 
situation of the guilty Advocate, fearfully expecting the arrival of Vir- 
ginius and his army and preparing an address to him, has a material 
likeness to that of Sicinius and Brutus expecting Coriolanus and the 
Volscian army, - on the one hand, and to that of Arteniidorus, or of 
the Soothsayer, ready to address Caesar on his arrival, on the other. ^ 

And in style Appius and Virginia echoes here and there that larger 
utterance of the Shaksperean Roman plays, particularly that oi Julius 
Cc^sar. Virginius's words as he contemplates the fall of Appius 
remind us involuntarily, not only in cast of phrase but in melody and 
accent, of Antony's over Caesar : 

Uncertain fate ! but yesterday his breath 

Aw'd Rome, and his least torvSd frown was death.'' 

Another has much the same high accent, 

let the sword and slaughter 
Chase the gowned senate through the streets of Ronie, 
To double-dye their robes in scarlet ^ ; 

and still another. 

To that giant, 

The high Colossus that bestrides us all,'* 

is too exact an echo to be mistaken. There is, moreover, a heightened 
and grandiose key to utterance like 

I,et him come thrill his partisan 
Against this breast, that through a large wide wound 
My mighty soul might rush out of this prison, 
To fly more freely to yon crystal palace. 
Where honor sits enthronis'd.' 

Come, you birds of death. 
And fill your greedy crops with human flesh : 
Then to the city fly, disgorge it there 
Before the Senate, and from thence arise 
A plague to choke all Rome.* 

' Cor., IV, 3, a Roman and a Volsce ; (7. C, II, 3 and 4, Arteniidorus, Soothsayer); 
Lear, III, 1; Mac, 11,4. 
" Cor., V. 1 and 4. " J. C. II, 3 and 4. 

* A.& K,219. Cf. /. C, III, 2, 123, 

Bui yesterday the word of Caesar might 
Have stood against the world. 
Cf. y. C III, 1, 148f. 

* A. <2f v., p. 141. '' A.& v.. p. 205. 

* A.^ y.,v>. 168 ; y. C, I. 2, 134-6. Pointed out by Dyce. ^ A.& V., p. 151. 

196 



O Rome, th' art grown a most unnatural mother, 
To those have held thee by the golden locks 
From sinking into ruin ! ' 

that is unlike anything else in Webster, from Wyatt to the Cure for a 
Cuckold, and goes back to the da\' of that heaven-aspiring speech and 
apostrophe which Beaumont and Fletcher ridiculed in the Knight of the 
Burning Pestle, the day of Shakspere's Hotspur, Cassius, and Caesar. 
Now this indebtedness 2 — in language, technique, and inspiring 
spirit — to Julius Ccesar and Coriolanus is so various and minute as 
to indicate the use of the printed page. These plays first appeared in 
the Folio of 1623. Such a date for Appius and Virginia would be in 
complete accord with the notable omission of it in Webster's list of 
his independent plays, given in the epistle dedicatory to the Law- 
Case, sometime between 1620 and the summer of 1622 J 

HEY^voor». 

In Appius and Virginia, a traged}^ of ancient, legendary Rome, 
there is a clown, an English one though \\-ith Latin name,"* little 



^ A-Ci" K,150. Note esp. the apostrophes and direct addresses here cited — things 
elsewhere almost unknown in Web. — particularly those to "Rome" and the 
"gods " ; and the fondness for personifying Rome — "fair Rome," etc. — and for 
harping on this word and on "gods" in any connection. These words seem to 
have a fascination, and are laid on thick for "local color." All this appears 
abundantly in Shak.'s Roman plays, and not in the later, romantic Roman play, 
full of the sentiment of latter-day chivalry, as fashioned by B. & F. and Mass. 
Addre.s.ses, apostrophes, and personifications of " Rome" — A. & V.: 140, 141, 144, 
147, 150, 157, 158, 167, 167, 223. Shak. : (I cite only more striking cases). Cor., I, 
9, 20 : II, 1, 179 : III, 1, 291 : III, 3, 110 ; IV, 5, 136 ; /. C, I. 2. 151 ; II, 1, 56 ; II, 2, 87 ; 
V, 3, 100 : Tit. And., I, 1, 69; I, 1, 70; etc., etc. See in Web. and Shak. esp. "great 
Rome," "ungrateful Rome," Rome as mother, etc. \t\ A.<2f V., the word " Rome " 
occurs 48 times, and " gods " 42 times ; and see the endless lists of these words in 
Bartlett — for Cor. (Rome 89 times and gods 48), /. C, and Tit. And. In B. & F.'s 
Faith. Friends (to take an example) there is no case of address to Rome or personifi- 
cation of her, and the word itself occurs only 24 times ; and " gods " is largely super- 
.seded, after Jonson's more knowing method, by Jove. Mars, Hercules, and the rest. 

^ For completeness sake let me add other points of possible indebtedness to 
Shak. : Virg.'s farewell to his daughter, pp. 200-1, and Lucius's words to his son 
in Tit. And., V, 3, 160-170; "jewels more worth than all her tribe," A. Cf I'., 197, 
and Othello, V, 2, 347, " cast a pearl away. Richer than all his tribe." (This last in 
Dyce.) 

^ We ma\- count as circumstantial evidence in favor of this the mention (twice 
over in II, 1) of a I,ady Calphumia. Such a name is not to be found in all L,ivy, 
Painter, Dionysius, or the Pecorone, and is probably to be attributed to W.'s recent 
reading of Jul. Cess. It may not be superfluous to add that the word is spelt as in 
the Folio (Berlin and Chatsworth copies) Calphurriiaici. Ital. Calfornid), not Cal- 
purnia, the true I,atin form, used in North's Plutarch throughout (in all ed. at least 
up to 1603). Yet it is to be noted that the orig. Q.oi A.Cb- V. (Brit. Mus.) prints 
Calpharina — a blunder, prob., in which only the small, obscure letters are affected. 

* Corbulo. A Corbulo, Roman general, died 67 A. D. 

197 



accommodated to his classical surroundings. A7iy anachronism need 
not startle one in an Elizabethan drama ; but the fact is, Roman plays 
were handled rather charily, and aside from Webster's, only one has 
such a thing as a clown, Heywood's Rape of Lucrece.^ Our minds 
refuse to conceive Webster as intending, single-handed, an innovation 
of such magnitude. Heywood's play deals with a story which imme- 
diately comes to mind — as was actually the case with Webster at the 
close, with Giovanni Fiorentino, and with Livy himself — so soon as 
that of Virginia is mentioned ; it appeared in 1608, and still held the 
stage (the same stage, too, as Webster's play) in 1639'-; and Heywood 
himself, as appears from Webster's collaboration with him, his praise of 
him in his preface to the White Devil, and his verses on his Apology for 
Actors, ^ was his friend. It would be nothing strange, then, to find that 
Webster, who, for the devising of his fable, leaned always so heavily 
on authorit}' and precedent, had borrowed this matter from him. 

In both cases the clown is servant to the heroine, and he appears in 
like situations. He is sent by his mistress on errands,* is taken to 
task by her for ogling at her maid (and that in the latter 's presence),* 
and is left to chatter with other servants alone.'' He jokes about his 
mistress's misfortune," about the sinners in the suburbs,' and, being 
a Roman, out of the Latin grammar.^ And the comic side of both 
is the same. It lies all in the speeches — the clown plays no pranks 
and suffers no mishaps; — and it has an episodic, random, and 
anachronistic character. It is all jest and repartee, puns, quibbles, 
and catches, and those neither clever nor new ; and the drift of it all, 
whenever it gets beyond words, is satire on London life and manners. ^ " 
It is good-humored, moreover, naive, and dirty. Clearly, then, Web- 
ster in the making of his Roman clown had an eye on Heywood's. 



}, There is one, indeed, in I,odge's archaic Wounds of Civil ]Var, pub. 1594, and 
at this same period there probably were others. And in Flet.'s Prophetess there is a 
Fool — a different thing-, — but not in any respect like Corbulo. 

'^ It is in Beeston's list of 1639, where A. & V. is mentioned. .See above, p. 33. 
Both, then, belonged to the Cockpit. 

^ Prefixed to the first ed., 1612. 

* Luc, II, 1 ; IV, 6; ^. <5' V., 145, 175. 

* Luc, II, 4 ; A.& v., 172. In the latter case, however, there is no scolding. 

* Luc, IV, 2 ; A.& v., 186-9. 

' Luc, IV, 6, p. 401 f; A.& V., 188. Eckhardt, Lust. Person, p. 433, also notices 
this, and asserts that Web. drew from Hey. 

' Luc. II, 1, p. 350; A. & V., 173. 

» Zwc, II, 4, p. 364 ; ^. (5- K.. 145. 

'" Both in the Clown's talk, p. 173, and the I^ictors', p. 171, W. shows this anachro- 
nistic bent : " book of common prayer," " banquerouts," "' French fly " and " French 
rheum," lawyers in term-time and their practices. Cf. Liic, pp. 349-50, 365, 373, 
374, 376, where there are even Dutch songs. 

198 



And where Webster's cIowti does not resemble the clown in 
Lucrece, he resembles this or that of Haywood's eighteen others.^ 
Nearly all of these are servants, who speak in prose, are good-natured, 
lively, not specially clever, given to punning, and to tvdsting and 
confounding words. Those in Challenge for Beauty and the Golden 
Age (like Corbulo again) are fitted out with the paraphernalia of 
Euphuism — parisonic antitheses and parallelisms of the true not only 
— but also and though — yet stamp, paronomasia, repetition,- allitera- 
tion * above all, with here and there a touch of extravagance that 
implies burlesque.-^ And one in Fortune by Lafid and Sea is, like 
Corbulo, lugubriously sympathetic, and, as well as the one in Love's 
Mistress, facetiously condescending toward his fellow servants.* 

This sort of clown was now old-fashioned. We have already 
learned how different Fletcher's — the height of the fashion — was; 
and (aside from what we then learned) he was not naive, not lugu- 
brious, nt)t much given to punning and to playing with words, not 
Euphuistic at all, and he spoke in verse not prose. "^ Webster's clown 
is arrayed in the garb of Speed, or of Dromio of Syracuse, or of John 
Lyly's merry Servants '' ; and he is furnished ^^^th a stock of Joe 

^ See Eckhardt for an account of Hey.'s clowns, index sub Hey. 

* Examples : IVorks, Vol. V, p. 64 : III, p. 10 ; A.& V., pp. 186-9, etc. " Parison " 
is used by L,andniann and Child for the precise balancing of words within balanced 
or antithesized clauses or sentences. See for this and the other :natters as essentials 
of Euphuism, Mr. C. G. Child's excellent Lyly and Euphuism. Erlang-en, 1894, 
p. 52 f. 

* This appears from alliteration so extravagant as that in Fo7-l. by iMnd and Sea 
(Vol. VI, p. 383), Lovers Mistr. (Vol. V, p. 113), or from paranomasia so elaborate as 
that in Chall. Beauty (Vol. V, p. 64) — " Danger I find but little in that face, and 't is 
able to outface the best face," etc., and in A.& V., 187 — " service," " serve," etc. ; or 
from Web.'s parody of Euphuism, A. & V., 172-3 — " There is a certain fish that, as 
the learned divulge, is called a shark," etc. Cf., too, the evidently ludicrous effect 
intended by Flet. and Mass. in their extraordinary use of alliteration, without, 
any Euphuistic concomitants. (See Eckhardt, p. 365). — The simple and frank 
delight that men took in the devices of Euphuism in its day of honor is quite 
gone. 

* Works, VI, pp. 383, 406 ; V, pp. 112-13. Cf. ^. cS' V., 186-9. They use antitheses, 
oratorical questions, and alliteration, as well. 

° There are rare exceptions, as in Fair Maid of the West. 

° Corbulo shows a greater variety of Euphuism than any of Hey.'s clowns, perhaps 
than all of them. Indeed, he has Euphuism of Euphues, such as less often appears 
in I,yly's plays, and never in the mouths of his servants — comparisons from ficti- 
tious botany and zoologj' (" poor camomile," Hen. IV .') introduced by the elaborate 
"there is in Africa." etc.; trains of balanced examples, or metaphors, from the 
world of "stones, stars, plants, fishes, flies" {A.(2f V., 172, 187) ; and, at the same 
time, some of the tricks of the I,yly -Servant sc. (imitated also by Shak.) such as the 
conundrum (what am I?), the inventory of his mistress's points {A.& V., 172), 
discussion of their masters, etc. See A. & y., 186-9. 

199 



Millers such as Fletcher and the Court would never have stomached.^ 
So, though in less degree, with some of Heywood's clowns ^ ; and I 
see no way so likely for Webster to have come at these old fashions as 
through the example of the creator of the clown in Lucrece."^ 

IV. MACHIAVELLISM AND MARIvOWE. 

After Euphuism, after Shakspere and Heywood, we need not be 
surprised at Marlowe and Machiavellism. Machiavellism appears in 
the two villains of the Period, Romelio and Appius. These are alike, 
and different from any other villains in Webster ; and it is in 
Machiavellism that much of this likeness (and difference) lies. 

They are egoists through and through, without an altruistic 
instinct, and are fired with what for Webster is a new motive — ambi- 
tion.'* Their policy is the old one of the lion and the fox, but above 
all the fox.'' Not afraid to strike, they prefer, like true Machiavels, 
to deal by dissembling, hypocrisy, and craft. They use men like 
nails to drive out one another. '"' They boast of their achievements and 
smile at their skill. Not that either of them is a " bottle-nosed knave ' ' 
or ' ' wall-eyed slave ' ' like Barabas or Aaron : they have something of 
the address and finesse that go with a gentleman ; they are sleek, 
Caroline versions of the rough, hirsute Elizabethan type. But the 
type, at any rate, is the same, as we have yet to learn from their 
maxims and from their conduct and utterances in typical situations. 



' Many of the old jokes recur, indeed, in Flet. (as, for that matter, today), but 
newly, ingeniously phrased. Here, unchanged, are the old Quibbles and puns, — 
ba,se and treble, woodcocks, mutton, caper, heir (air), and son (sun) — that go back 
at least to the day of I,,yly. 

" This is not to say that Hey.'s clowns are without any of the qualities of the 
fashionable type. The active, unepisodic part many of them play, as in Fair Maid 
of the West, Lovers Mist., for example, shows the contrary. 

^ Chall . Beauty and f.ove''s Mist, contain Euphuism, as we have .seen, and the 
latter .shows some definite indebtedness to I,yly's comedies, as in the clown's love 
for Amaryllis (Rckhardt, p. 421, who points this out) , and, I would add, in the mat- 
ter of introducing into the play King Midas, old Grk. myth, material, and the 
clown's comical superciliou.sness with the swains (cf. L. M., Hey. Works, vol. V, pp. 
112-13, and L,yly's Mydas, I, 2 ; II, 2). Both plays were published in 1636, and it may 
be that they were affected directly by the collection of I<yly's Court Plaj's, published 
in 1632. For A. & V., too, this date may be the backward limit. 

* Previous villains were all revengers, or, like Flam., unambitious tool-villains. 

^ i^e& Meyer's Machiavelli a>id Ens. Drama, p. 12, for this celebrated maxim of 
Machiavellism, and basis for the Elizabethan characterization of Machiavellians. 
,So long as I speak of the character of Machiavellians in general I am indebted to 
this book. — The words Machiavel and Machiavellian I use in this discussion only 
in the sense of the false, Elizabethan Machiavellism, not the Machiavellism of 
Machiavelli. 

* A common maxim. 

200 



These last let us compare together, marking at the same time shreds 
and remnants of antiquated, conventional phrase.^ 

1. Appius, on various occasions, presents a full complement of 
Machiavellian maxims, — of biding one's time, of fraud and dissem- 
bling, of using one ill to cure another : 

Appius, be circumspect, and be not rash 

In blood, as th' art in lust : be murderous still ; 

But when thou strik'st, with unseen weapons kill. A. c2f V., 163. 

We should smile smoothest where our hate's most deep, 
And when our spleen's broad waking, seem to sleep. 



Great men should strike but once, and then strike sure. A. & V., 164. 
. . . one ill must cure another. A. (2f V., 186. 

Citations for comparison are almost superfluous ; I give but a few : 

Bar." . . . Nothing \-iolent, 

Oft have I heard tell, can be permanent. Malta, I. 1, 132-3. 

Glou. Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile. 

3 Hen. VI, 111,2, 182. 

Lorenzo. Thus must we practise to prevent mishap, 

And thus one ill another must expulse. Sp. Tr., Ill, 2, 106. 

Guise. For this I wake when others think I sleep 



For this, this head, this heart, this hand, and sword. 

Contrives, imagines, and fully executes, 

Matters of import aimed at by many. 

Yet understood by none. Mass. Paris, sc. II, 47-54. 

2. True Machiavel that he is, Appius warns and prompts himself 
in his part. Very striking in this connection is the survival of the 
old-fashioned addressing oneself by name ^ : 

App. Appius, be circumspect, etc. (See preced. par.) 

Guise. Now, Guise, begin those deep-engender'd thoughts. 

Mass. Paris, sc. II, 32. 
Then, Guise, 
Since thou hast all the cards within thy hands, lb., sc. II, 88. 

Bar. And, Barabas, now search this secret out. Malta, I, 1, 177. 

Yorke. Now Yorke, bethink thyself and rouse thee up. 

Contention, p. 168. 



' Dr. Meyer sees no Machiavellism in these plays — only some insignificant mat- 
ters in the IV. D. But Dr. Meyer and I are concerned with two different matters: 
he only vni\\ traces of Machiavelli's name and personality, his maxims and the 
pseudo-Machiavellian maxims of Gentillet; I, with the characterization, the ways 
and doings, of Machiavels as portrayed in the Eng. drama. 

^ I can not here take space to show how all these personages — Barabas, Rich. Ill, 
L,orenzo, Eleazar (Lust's £>o»i.) , Piero, Guise, etc. — are Machiavellians. The reader 
may consult Meyer. 

^ Not to be found elsewhere in Web., except, indeed, in old-fashioned IVyatt, 
pp. 36. 48, 54. 

201 



3. As his victim goes out, Appius throws off the cloak of dissimula- 
tion, and utters a threat ' : 

Go to thy death, thy life is doom'd and cast. A. & V., 163. 

So: 

Charles. Come, mother, 

I^et us go to honour this solemnity. 

Q. Mother. Which I '11 dissolve with blood and cruelty. 

Mass. Paris, so. I, 24-6. 

Bar. I '11 pay thee with a vciiKcance, Ithamore. Malta, III, 4. 114. 

Eleazar. Do, and be damned : Zarack and Balthazar, 

Dog them at the heels. Lust's Dominion, p. 127. 

4. The Machiavellian brushes aside a difficulty or a scruple, cheer- 
ful, ruthless devil that he is, with a tut or tush ^ : 

App. Tush, any fault 

Or .shadow of a crime will l)e sufficient 

For his committing.' A.<5- V., 185. 

Aaron. Tut! L,ucius, this was but a deed of charity 

To that which thou shalt hear of me anon. Tit. And., V, 1, 89. 

Aaron. Tut 1 I have done a thou.sand dreadful things 

As willingly as one would kill a fly. /6., V, 1, 141. 

Gloucester. Tut, I can smile, and murder when I smile, 

I crie content, to that which grieves me most. True Trag. York, p. 64. 

Glou. Tut ! were it farther off, I '11 pluck it down.* 3 Hen. VI, III, 2, 195. 

Bar. Tush ! 

As good dissemble what thou never means't. 

As first mean truth and then di.s.semble it. Malta, I, 2, 290. 

Q. Mother. Tush, man, let me alone with him 

Tu.sh, all shall die unless I have my will. Mass. Paris, .sc. XIV, 61. 

Northumberland. Have we not the king and council's hands unto it? 

Tut, we stand high in men's opinion 

And the world's broad eye." IVyatt, p. 6. 

5. The main thing, however, is this Machiavel's having attached to 
him.self a henchman, Marcus, who, like Ithamore in Malta and Buck- 
ingham in Richard III, does his rough work, admires his "policy," 
and exchanges crude endearments with him. 



• This, of course, is not necessarily to be connected with the Machiavel : it is 
merely something old-fashioned that belongs to them as to other villains of their 
•day, and is new in W. 

■ This word is to be found only once el.sewhere in Web. 'sown work — in C. C,p. 21. 

* /. e., to put off on his shoulders. 

* I.e., the crown. 

• North, starts, we remember, as a Machiavel. — See above, p. 46. 

202 



a. The henchman admires, or is called upon to admire, his policy : 

Marcus. Excellent, excellent lapwing, 

There 's other stuff clos'd in that subtle breast. A. df V., 133. 

I<et me adore your divine policy. A. & V., 185. 

App. How dost thou like my cunning ? 



laugh, my trusty Marcus ; 
I am enforc'd to my ambition. A.<5f V., 131. 

Bar. Now tell me Ithamore, how likst thou this ? 

Ilh. O master, that I might have a hand in this ! Malta, II, 3, 368-71. 

Ith. O mistress, ha I ha ! ha ! 
Abie. Why, what ailst thou ? 
Ith, O my master ! 
Abtg. Ha! 

Ilh. O, my master has the bravest policy. 7l/a//a, III. 3, 5-12. 

Bar. . . . say, will not this be brave? 

Fern. O excellent! Malta.W, 5,M-2. 

Guise. Now Madam, how like you our lusty Admiral ? 

Q. Mo. Believe me, Guise, he becomes the place so well 

That I could long ere this have wished him there. 

Mass. Paris., sc. XI, 14-16. 
Piero. Ha, Strotzo, is 't not rare? Ant. Rev.. I, 1, 74. 

Lorenzo. How likes Prince Balthazar this stratageme ? 

Sp. Tr.. II, 1,110. 

b. Endearments : 

App. O my trusty Claudius! 

Mar. My dear lord, etc. A. & V., 185. 

Bar. O, Ithamore, come near : 

Come near, my love : come near, thy master's life. 

My trusty servant, etc. 

Ilh. Why, I '11 do anything for your dear sake. Malta, III, 4. 

and similar blandishments in the Massacre at Paris, between the 
Guise and Queen Mother, II, 2, and III, 2 ; in the Malcontent, IV, 1, 
11. 215-17 ; in Hoffman, between the villain-hero and his accom- 
plice, Lorrick, 11. 615, 683; in Richard III, between Gloucester and 
Buckingham, II, 2, 151 f . 

6. Laughter at success in their deviltry, on the part of either 
Machiavel or henchman. See examples quoted above from Appius 
and Virginia and Malta, and the following : 

Eleazar. Farewell my lords ; meet there ; ha, ha, ha ! 

Lust's Dom., p. 187. 

Piero. He [Pandulpho] grieves; laugh, Strotzo, laugh. 

Ant. Rev.. II, 2, 130. 

and compare the familiar passage in Titus Andronicus, V, 1, 110-20, 
where Aaron gloats and laughs ; and Lust's Dominion, p. 188, etc. 

203 



7. iMiially, the Machiavel and his henchman play a hypocritical 
hoax together. .In Appius atid l^ir^inia there are three cases — the 
faint refusal of office at the beginning and the two .sham trials. ' The 
one resembles Gloucester's hypocritical refusal of the crown urged 
upon him by Buckingham, in Richard I//, III, 5 and 7, and Morti- 
mer's of the Protectorship, in Edward /I, V, 4; and the others 
(though far more adroit), similar 'policies' in Malta (IV, 3, for 
instance, where he an<l Ithamore make one friar believe he has killed 
the other), and in Antonio's Revenge,'^ as where Piero and .Strot/.o 
play their uncouth game. This, again, is new in Webster. 

All this has been about Appius, our thesaurus of illustration l)eing 
Marlowe, the great dramatist of Machiavellism. A word now about 
Romelio, less as a Machiavel than .simply as .showing traces of remi- 
niscences from Marlowe, more especially from the Jew of Malta. A 
Machiavel ruthless and crafty as Barabas we have already seen him to 
be. No more tlian the Jew does he he.stitate to play the lion, to stab 
Contarino for his money, when the time comes for that ; Imt like him 
he prefers the fox — intriguing, disguising, dissembling. Like all 
Machiavellians, he delights in pitting one man again.st another, as 
his sister against his mother; and he has even the Machiavellian's 
infidelity. Hut, more than all that, he .stands directly under the 
shadow of the burly Jew. Romelio, too, is a man of untold wealth ; 
he, too, loves it and boasts of it ; and his words, as he does .so, are 
unmistakably a reminiscence of the first scene of Malta: 

I 'II Kive the kin^j of .Spain 

Ten thousand ducats yearly, and discharjre 

M.v yearly custom. The Hollanders .scarce trade 

More (generally than I : my factors' wives 

Wear chaperons of velvet, and my .scriveners. 

Merely through my employment, ^row so rich. 

They build their palaces and belvederes 

With musical water-works. 



/-"/YAV. I pray, sir, what do you think 

Of .Sik'iiior Baptisto's estate? 

Ro. A mere be^^^rar : 

He's worth some fifty tho\isand ducats. 

Pros. Is not that well ? 

Jio. How, well ! for a man to be melted to snow water, 

With toiliuK' in the world from three-and-twenty 

Till three score, for poor fifty thousand ducats! 

Faith, and for silver, 

Should 1 not send it packing to th' Ivast Indies. 

We should have a srlut on 't. />■ I- C, 9, 10. 

' After the .second trial A. shows no more Machiavellism. He is a "Roman 
eentlenian " in the prison-scene. "1,2, and IV, 1. 

204 



Here is alike extravagant fancy — the same contempt for silver, the 
same sweating oneself to death, and the same use of customs to 
measure to our imagination the immeasurable total treasure assessed. 
Again, when Romelio enters the distinctively Machiavellian situation 
of recounting his career of villainy,^ he seems directly to refer to 

Barabas : 

for slight \-illainies. 
As to coin money, corrupt ladies' honours. 
Betray a town to th" Turk, or make a bonfire 
A' th' Christian Navy, I could settle to t. D. L. C, p. 53. 

Add to this a line of Appius's, charged with Marlowesque hyper- 
bole, — a figure which calm Webster never uses, — 

Had I as many hands 
As had Briareus, I d extend them all 
To catch this office * ; 

and the sum of the evidence of phrase and characterization seems to 
point, as I think, unmistakaVjly, in the case of the Law-Case as in that 
of Appius and I'irgitiia, to Webster's consorting in this Period with 
the great dramatist of Machiavellism, Marlowe. 

The Guise. 

In the epistle dedicator^' of the Devil's Law-Case, we remember, 
Webster mentions, among other of his plays, one now lost; and 
follows this order — chronological in part at least — White Devil, 
jMalfi, Guise. This Guise must certainly have been written out of a 
full knowledge of the Massacre at Paris ('which play, we know, went 
also bv that title;, if, indeed, it was not merelva recast of that archaic. 
Machiavellian play. If, now, we should hold the order to he altogether 
chronological, and the Guiseto follow Malfi and precede the Law-Case, 
then we should have a rational explanation of the sudden appearance, 
in this last Period, of Machiavellism and Marlowe. A place is needed 
for the Guise, and here is the place to hand. If not, we may let the 
Guise still shift for itself, and have recourse, as before with the 
reminiscences from Shakspere and Lyly, to Webster's senile sterility 
and his eclectic, academic tendencies. But an explanation for two 
facts is better, and more satisfying, than one for one. 



' Rom. does so, howe%'er. only in his imagination. See Barabas's and Aaron's 
recitals, Malta. II. 3. 177 f, and Tit. And.. V, 1, \21-\^A. 

* Cf. Had I as many souls as there be stars, 

I 'd give them all for Mephistophilis. Fauslus, sc. Ill, 11. 104-5. 
and cf. the scores of hyperboles (also under Verzleich) . as tabulated in O. Fischer's 
Zur Charaklerislik der Dranien Marlcrwe's, Miinchen, 1889. 

205 



V. THE PERIOD AS A WHOLE. 

The great facts of this third Period are Webster's break with the style 
of his prime, his 3'ielding to other influences — to the fashion of the 
day, on the one hand, and to bygone fashions. Academic models, on the 
other, — and the abeyance of creative power. In the second Period 
Webster gave more than he took ; now he takes more than he gives. 
This is not what we expect of a great poet in his last Period. We 
expect him not altogether to lose the utterance he achieved in his 
prime ; we expect the changes in him not all to come from without. 
But Webster is tliiis only the child of his age. The profession he 
followed was a craft, too thoroughlv popular, too Viuliterary and 
uncritical, and too much the handmaiden of the hour, to be what we 
nowadays conceive as art ; and in his decline he followed it only as 
the greatest of his day, and the greatest name of his day, — Shakspere 
and Chapman — followed it in theirs. Yet, in one way, Webster real- 
izes more nearly than these (though still not untrue to his later, 
Caroline Age) what we expect of a poet in his decline. He grows 
Academic, eclectic : like Massinger and Shirley he cons the new 
folios^ and multiplying quartos, and, though in a more senile, 
slavish, and wholesale way, he resuscitates outworn motives and 
mannerisms. 

The main influence is that of Fletcher and Massinger. It appears 
in all three plays of the Period ; it furnishes matter, pervades the 
whole technique and spirit, and chokes out the old Marstonian (not to 
say Websterian) art. From Massinger, as we have seen, is taken the 
main-plot of the Cure for a Cuckold ; on Fletcher is modelled many a 
single situation ; and from Fletcher, or Fletcher and Massinger both, 
are drawn the conventionalized types of character. Fletcherian, more- 
over, are scene of action, methods of construction, conception of 
the relation of character to plot and of plot to morals, and the comic 
spirit. And before the glare of Fletcher's genius Webster's own pales 
and shrinks away. There is rapidly less and less, and finally, in the 
Cure for a Cuckold, none, of his old baiting, fabling, and meditating ; 
of his crabbed and sententious utterance, sombre imagery, and melo- 
dramatic setting and machinery ; of his strong grasp on truth of char- 
acter and morals, stern dealing of justice, and tragic gloom ^ ; even of 
what might seem his more personal qualities — his pathos, irony, and 
humor. The author of Vittoria Corombo7ia and the Duchess of Malfi, 



' of Shak., 1623 ; of Jonson, 1616-31 ; of Mars., 1633. In l5mo, six plays of Lyly's, 
1632. 

' /. e., to mention those few elements of the revenge-period which do in some 
measure occur in D. L. C. or A . <Sf V. 

206 



who might stand alone, forsakes himself to follow after the reveller, 
Fletcher. 

It would be a sign of the remarkable wholeheartedness with which 
Webster followed Fletcher, if we were to take it that it was from him 
that Webster now learned the practice of contriving his plots. This is 
not unlikely ; such a practice, at all events, is a note of his Fletcherian 
Period. In the White Devil and IMalfi Webster takes his plot from 
history or his Italian novel in the old-fashioned way, quite whole. In 
these later plays he weaves together strange strands, like the tale from 
Goulart and the tale from Lust's Dominion, in the DeviV s Law-Case, 
with many a strand of his own spinning. Such is the case above all 
in the Law-Case, and even in the Cure for a Cuckold, where he does 
some wholesale borrowing, and in the Appius and Virgitiia, where 
by the nature of things he must more or less follow his authorities. 
To be sure, Webster is not a good hand at it, and does no honor to his 
defter, tnore resourceful master. Patching and plastering as best he 
may, he has much ado to make the plot of the Law- Case hold together ; 
and with the motivation of the Cure for a Cuckold he has got into 
a sad muddle.^ Invention and construction are not his forte. But 
whether it be Fletcher or merely himself that is to blame, the under- 
taking was a pretty mettlesome and valorous one at these years. 

Of the old-fashioned models to which Webster reverts in this Period, 
some, as Heywood and Shakspere, he imitated deliberately ; others, 
as Marlowe and other undetermined Machiavellian and Euphuistical 
writers, half unconsciously, it may be, through reminiscence of early 
days. Both sorts of imitation may be explained, as we please, as 
arising out of senile abeyance of creative power, out of the present 
accessibility of the texts of earlier masters and the rising critical 
interest in them, or out of embarrassment in the making of Appius and 
I'irginia (in which this imitation is most evident) — a Roman play. 
This last is not improbable, for in this same play, as we have seen, 
Webster was hard put to it for material, and for it ransacked the 
histories as much as he did old Roman plays for hints in technique and 
form. However we explain it, eclectic and academic tendencies must 



' As to this last, see above, p. 165 f. As for/?. L. C: See the inexplicable conduct 
of vSanitonella, Crispiano's clerk, who for no reason becomes I,eonora's nefarious 
agent, and no longer seems acquainted with his master, nor he with him (II, 1, and 
IV, 1 and 2) ; the plastering on p. 51. where Ercole explains why he should announce 
his death, and how he can at the same time avoid damaging Contarino ; the utterly 
unreasonable prank of Romelio, locking up his mother and the Friar when they try 
to save him (p. 115), in order to make a complication, and his equally unreasonable 
change of heart (p. 118), to solve it. Cf. Marcus's absurd scheme to bring Virginia 
to terms by scantling her father's pay ( A.df V.), Icilius's quarrel (p. 213). 

207 



be recognized as not new and foreign to one who, even in the Period 
of his prime, showed fruits from the careful, discriminating study of 
many and various dramatists, and who, even then, was evidently, 
notoriously, a slow, laborious worker.^ 

The breach we have noticed between this third, or Fletcherian, 
Period and the foregoing, or revenge, Period, however, is nothing to 
that between the first, or apprenticeship. Period and both following 
ones. In the latter case there is no connecting link of phrase or 
incident of technique or spirit ^ ; in the former there is all of this. 
Phrases from the revenge plays are echoed in the Fletcherian Period 
in some number ~ ; here and there a fragment of plot and characteriza- 
tion reappears ^ ; and in the Law-Case and Appius and Virginia there 
is fabling, •* baiting, ^ and aphorizing, " deeds of blood and subtle, poetic 
villains. The Law-Case, indeed, really fills the place our date assigns 
to it — of transition . It alone of these last plays retains something of the 
old, keen phrase and charnel-house imagery, ' vestiges of the uncanny 
stage-properties, and a malcontent villain, meditating (in rime too) 
like Bosola.* And that more worldly, cynical irony we have noticed 
in this play, now not of the soul as a lark in a cage, but of heralds 
laughing in their black raiment, of ladies spending their own lives and 
their waiting-women's in putting on clothes, and of Romelio brushing 
aside the question of death, is possibly, we have seen, Webster's own 
mood as he turns from the gloom and reality of Malfi to the comedy 

of Fletcher. 

CONCLUSION. 

We have now followed Webster from the beginning to the end. We 
were with him in his Dekkerian Period and found him altogether 
another Dekker, or else a characterless, colorless hack. We were 
with him in his Revenge Period, and here, at his zenith, found him at 
almost all points an imitator, at many a wholesale borrower. We 
were with him in his Fletcherian Period, and found him forsaking his 
old methods and point of view, even the style that seems to the casual 



' See the preface to W. D.: and the piecing together of sentences from the 
Arcadia in Mai. " See above, pp. 80-2. 

=■ Three law-cases, in IV. D., Ill, 2 ; D. L. C, IV, 2 ; and ^. <5" V., IV, 1. each con- 
ducted by a foolish, pettifogging lawj-er ; Isabella, Cornelia, and Leonora, all lying to 
save husband or son, /r. D., 39-41, 109-10, D. L. C. 101 ; the woman ' taking an 
inventory ' at an interview with her lover, Mai., 173, and D. L. C, 25. See, further, 
those cited in connection with C. C, p. 38 f. * See above, pp. 38-40. 

* D. L. C, 33-5, 43-6, 85 ; at the law-cases in both D. L. C. and A.& V., and in 
A. & v., 213-15. ® It abounds in A. (Sf. r. 

' D. L. C, 47-8, 79, 114-15. In the A.^ V. there is nothing but what is stereo- 
typed and mediocre. The only gloomy image in C. C. is at p. 46. 

* D. L. C, 47-8, 57. Cf. above, p. 133. 

208 



reader so individual, to follow after Fletcher and others, till, in what 
is probably his last play, the Cure for a Cuckold, there is nothing but 
insignificant tricks and phrases left to show he is Webster still. 

In following this development, in determining the periods of it, we 
have kept the standpoint of influence ; and here is our justifica- 
tion. No one ever owed influence more. Marlowe, Marston, Dekker, 
Jonson, Beaumont are recognizable in all their work ; and, in spite of 
their habit of collaboration , Fletcher and Massinger. So even with 
the "myriad-minded " one : Titus Androtiicus and Richard III are 
not Marlowe, nor Henry VIII and the Winter's Tale Beaumont and 
Fletcher. Infinitely receptive and impressionable, Shakspere was 
nevertheless not imitative, but creative ; and by ceaseless creation he 
preserved his identity. And, without study of Webster as a whole, 
one would expect the same of him — the ' terrible Webster ' of the 
White Devil and Malfi — so individual, conscious, and haught\^ in 
his art. "But, as we have seen, it is not so. No one so strong ever 
leaned harder on the staff of tradition ; no one ever looked about him 
more narrowly for material or studied more closely others' methods. 
The truth may be, that he had no spring of invention welling within 
him : that he had profound insight, subtle taste, and a zeal to toil, but 
that he had not that within him which of itself would change and 
make new — make his own — all that he touched. His works are few, 
follow at long intervals, and show the marks of the file ; the materials 
in them he culled from afar, often left unchanged, or used again and 
again, but what determined his choice, or his change, was less some 
inner necessity than the model he, as a student, then held before him, 
the influence he then obeyed. These changed ; and Webster's work 
— laborious, discriminating, artistic, but not spontaneous — changed 
with them. 



209 



APPENDIX I. 

For two reasons, as we have already seen, it is important to ascertain the date 
of Tourneur's A theisi's Tragedy; — that is, in order to determine the value of the 
references to it in the White Devil, as tending to fix the date of the latter, and in 
order to furnish a solid basis for the history of the development of the revenge type 
traced in Chapter III.' There we took the composition of the two plays. Revenger's 
Tragedy and Atheist's Tragedy, to be in the order of their registering and publishing, 
and in either case close to those dates — 1607 and 1611." Messrs. Churton Collins and 
Fleay, on the other hand, and most scholars who have turned their attention to the 
subject, have inverted the order of the plays, and so have removed the dates of com- 
position somewhat from those of the registering and publishing. 

Surely on insufficient basis. Collins, who was the first to do this, and was followed 
by Symonds and Ward,^ based his assumption on the purely subjective ground of 
internal evidence. He found the Ath. Tr. a rawer, more immature work of art, 
and inferred that it belonged to the author's raw and immature years. Such vague, 
purely esthetic, a priori, argument is not here to be considered*; anyway, the 
major premise of the example before vis is not sound. Many " mature " works of 
genius are early, and are followed by the comparatively crude and immature. 
What childish blood-and-thunder in the Massacre oy Paris, after Tanibur/aitie and. 
Faustns .' What trifling in Cymbeline or Pericles or the II 'inter's Tale after Lear and 
Hamlet ! What trash in the way of railroad and ladies' stories after the Recessional 
and Vi'ithout Benefit of Clergy ! But, as I said, this absolute point of view is simply 
not to be taken : we have to consider sources and influences, and to comprehend this 
esthetic crudity as a stage in the author's development. Accordingly,^ in the Rev. 
Tr. Tourneur appears to be working under the tutelage and guidance of an estab- 
lished and elaborated tradition ; in \^\e Ath. Tr., to be breaking with it: and the 
crudity and immaturity, as is often the case, is largely the effect produced by a break 
with tradition in a daring, single-handed experiment. In the one case, he carries 
forward to their limits motives handed down to him — revenge, ghosts, physical 
horrors, and portents, etc., — and he profits by the past. In the other, he tries to go 
his own gait, revolts against the old bloodthirstiness and yet retains the old 
machinery, and thrusts into the midst of the old forms and scheme of plot startling 
ideas and utterances, and ludicrously inappropriate incidents, of his own. Im- 
mature, then, the Ath. Tr. may from the esthetic standpoint be; but only in the 
sense of being revolutionary and experimental, not in the sense of green and 
youthful. 

Of a different sort (though to my mind likewise untenable) is the judgment of 
Mr. Fleay, accepted by Mr. Thorndike. He finds the references to the siege of 
Ostend to be proof that the play was written contemporaneously, even before the 



' Seep. lllf. 

" The Rev. Tr., reg. Oct. 7, 1607, pub. the same year; Ath. Tr., Sept. 14, 1611, pub. 
the same year (Arber). 
^ Ward, III, p. 69; Collins's Tour., vol. I, p. xxxviii. 
■* See an example of it confuted at end of App. II. 
' See above, pp. 105-13, and esp. p. 113. 

210 



siege had ended (1504). In II, 1, Borachio, as a pretended eye-witness, reports 
events at the opening of the sluices, which took place some time before the end, — 
Jan. 7, 1602.' as Mr. Thorndike adds. Hence, Mr. Thorndike infers, the play must 
have been written not later than 1603 and not earlier than 1602. The latter half of 
this induction is certainly flawless : the former, almost as certainly, not. 

For, this long report of the siege and battle at Ostend, forming as it does an 
integral part of the plot and original plan, is evidence very diflferent from passing 
allusions such as those in IVesi7va>d Ho to Ostend or that in the Law-Case 
to Amboyna. These latter are legitimate evidence as to date: — unconnected, 
unpremeditated allusions, that are unthinkable except as contemporaneous, as 
starting up into the author's mind out of the environment in which he is writing, 
only for the joke's or the news' sake. But in our play Ostend is part and parcel of 
the story, and finds a place there rather to serve a functional need, as providing a 
convenient battle or disaster in which Charlemont might be reported to have fallen. 
To this end, Tourneur chose, with a veritable Elizabethan instinct for realism, 
simply the nearest and most interesting to Englishmen, though Zutphen would 
have done as well. And he describes it, not as something now on everybody's lips, 
not pertly and allusively, nor with an abundance of newspaper detail, but in strains 
of colorless and elaborate poetry such as might have been effused over Agincourt or 
Hastings. ' There is not a vestige of evidence in the reference to Ostend, then, that 
Tourneur is writing Ath. Tr. before 1603, or, for that matter, for a .score of years 
after. 

There is some evidence, on the other hand, for our very justifiable presumption 
that the dates of the registering and printing of the plays represent pretty nearly 
the dates of compo.sition. For not only is it improbable that Tourneur should 
have written the Ath. Tr., half emancipated as it is from the revenge conventions, — 
from bloodthirstiness, infernal and supernal machinery, and the Marstonian close 
plot of intrigue in the style of the A/a/c.,— with its evident revolt against rezienze 
and its parody of it. and then have written a play absolutely in the spirit of the old 
tradition ; it is improbable from so definite and simple a point of view as that of 
metre. The metrical technique of the Ath. Tr. is as much in sympathy with the 
progress of a later day as is the purely dramatic. At the latter point the play shows, 
as we have already seen, the influence of Shakspere's later tragedies; and, very 
naturally, it shows also some of the metrical tendencies of these plays — hardly 
influence from them — as regards rejection of rime (triplets and couplets) and 
adoption of run-on lines and light and weak endings. The Rev. Tr., on the other 
hand, here as everywhere following the lead of Marston,^ has, as our table below 
indicates,' abundant couplets and triplets, few run-on lines, and very few light and 
weak endings. Now, all this, especially abundance of light and weak endings, is a 
pretty certain test of late work. For, though conservative features like rime and 
end-stopt lines may be found even increasingly in a dramatist's later work, as rime 

* Thorndike, Hamlet, etc., p. 136. 

* It is impossible to go into the matter here, but there can be no doubt that the 
metre of Rev. Tr. is the more old-fashioned metre of Marston. Let me cite briefly 
the following, to be compared with the table below. Abundance of rime {A. & M. , 
IM'k, Ant. Rev., 10.01 ?{, Soph.. 15^) ; the same riming methods, — triplets, couplets 
separated by one unrimed line, riming of separate speeches, riming of lines of 
very unequal length, genuine weak (schwach) rime. For these facts, so far as 
Marston is concerned, see Von Scholten, Metrische, Untersuch. uber M.. Halle, 1886. 
For Marston 's lack of 1. and w. endings see Schipper, II, p. 333 f. The reading of 
a few pp. of What You Will or the Fawn will show how T. caught M.'s lilting: 
movement. ' See below, p. 212, 

211 



in Marston and end-stopt lines in Fletcher, there is no case known (or probable) 
of the innovations, light and weak endings, gi\'ing way, at this time when they 
were just coming in,' to strong endings and end-stopt lines. That Tourneur him- 
self, at least, was no such case, the verse of his elegies tends to show. The traditions 
and uses of elegiac and dramatic verse are, I know, generally so different that not 
much can be argued from the one to the other ; yet, this, being, like the dramatic, 
five foot iambic in couplets, seems to offer no unfair comparison. At all events, A 
Greife on the Death of Prince Henrie, L,ondon, 1613, exhibits in the matter of run-on 
lines and light and weak endings exactly the same advance over the Funerall Poeme 
upon Ihe Death of Sir Francis Vere, 1609,' as the Ath. Tr. (if it follows) does over 
the Rev. Tr. Now since the course of metrical development as thus shown in the 
case of Tourneur's elegies, is just that of the Elizabethan drama generally, it .seems 
nowise likely that in the case of Tourneur's dramas it should have been reversed.^ 

There is good ground, then, to justify our natural presumption that the dates of 
registering represent approximately the dates of composition. But suppose, for one 
instant, Messrs. Collins and Fleay right, and the Rev. Tr. to follow the Ath. Tr. 
We then have, because of allusions to Lear and Marston's Fa-vn.* to crowd the onlj' 



' /. e., 1603-7 : Macbeth {1603-10) , Lear (1606) have light end. but very few weak 
end.; Ant. & Cleo. (reg. May, 1608), 1. e. 2.53 54, w. e. 1.00$; Pericles (pub. 1609), 
I.e. 2.78 !«, w. e. 1.39 5^.— Ingram. 

* The dates of publishing indicate very accurately the date of composition. For 
Sir Francis Vere died Aug. 28, 1608, and Prince Henry Nov. 6, 1612. 

^ Table showing the increase of run-on lines and of light and weak endings in 
both plays (1607-1611) and elegies (1609-1613) ; showing, further, the decrease in- 
rime (couplets and triplets) in the plays : 





no. of 11. 


run-on 


1. & w. end. 


triplets 


couplets 


Rev. Tr. . . . 
Ath. Tr. . . . 

Vere 

Henrie .... 


460 
402 
617 
141 


105/20.2% 

152/37.7% 

257/41.6% 

71/50.3% 


1 only 
30/7.4 % 
12/1.94% 

7/4.96% 


4 


49/10.6% 
12/ 2.9% 



The number of lines taken in the plays is in both cases the whole first act. In the 
case of the elegies, the whole poem. In the matter of run-on lines I have tried to 
count according to a uniform principle, adopting the St. Petersburg rules with 
necessary modifications : for the light and weak endings I have adopted the St. 
Petersburg rules unreservedly. The elegies are in size so uneqvial that the com- 
parison as to so rare phenomena as light and weak endings is hardly fair ; yet 
obser\'e that in the first 7 pages of Vere (a no. of 11. equal to all Henrie) there is but 
one such ending. 

* The allusion to the Faivn (1606, cf. p. 107) lies in the character and name of 
Dondolo, the fool in the Rev. Tr. It is hardly to be doubted, since the name is not 
to be found elsewhere (so far as I can discover) in the Eliz. drama, and everywhere 
else (,v. supra) Tour, borrows from Mars. The echoes in t\\& Ath. Tr. from Lear 
(see above p. 112, note) are almost equally certain, for D'Amville, like I,ear, is 
mad. Shak. seems about this time (1611) to have been making a name for his mad- 
scenes (cf. Web.'s unmistakable imitation of them, supra p. 142); moreover, the 
idea D'Amville expresses seems too original for Tour. Lear was first acted the last 
of 1606 (St. Stephen's day), before the king. 

212 



two plays Tourneur has left us into the year 1607 and before October 7th. Plays so 
different in spirit and ethics, in metre and rhythm ! The Rev. Tr., moreover (the 
later, according to our momentary supposition), containing no allusions to any of 
the greatest plays of Shakspere, just now appearing, or indeed to any of his,^ and 
emulating the style of old-fashioned Marston, and the Alh. Tr., the earlier, contain- 
ing references to Hamlet, Lear, and Othello and emulating Shakspere's art. The 
improbability of our supposition — of CoUins's and Fleay's theory — is too great. 



APPENDIX II. 
Influence of Fletcher on Chapman. 

The influence of the later poets appears unmistakably in Chapman's Alfihonsus 
and Revenge for Honor, not to mention The Ball, written in partnership with Shirley. 
The very lively series of turns to the denouement of Alphonsjis (last sc.) is not like 
the old Chapman, or the old Tragedy of Blood, but Fletcher ; the trick of Abilqualit's 
telling Tarifa aside what he disavows so soon as the latter blurts it out before the 
others, is exactly copied from the trick of Melantius on Calianax in the Maid's 
Tragedy {Rev. Hon., IV, 1, p. 437, and M. Tr., IV, 2, pp. 19, 20), as well as the funny, 
yet not heartless, comment of the comic personage upon the death of the hero, at the 
end (Selinthus and Calianax). The dramatis persouEe, with their stock types, show 
Fletcher still more : especially such as Selinthus, the "honest, merry court lord," 
p. 428; Osman, the captain, p. 441 ; Mura, a " rough lord," p. 416 ; — all being such 
types as Melantius in the M. Tr., I,eontius (" a brave, old, merry soldier" ) in the 
Hum. Lient., Fabritio ("a merry soldier") in Captain, Chilax ("an old, merry 
soldier ") in Mad Lover, and the " three honest court lords " in Wife Month. Space 
forbids expatiation, but there is no question that our " noble poet," as Dekker and 
Webster call him (see Chap. II), is here leaving his old, " vSenecal " vein of Biissy 
and Byron for the new-fangled airs of the Jacobean court-poets. 

Indeed, I think there is absolute proof that this Rev. Hon. is deeply indebted to 
one play of Beaumont and Fletcher's, Cup. Rev. Aside from the above points : 

1. A young prince (Leucippus — Abilqualit) lyingly denies before his father, the 
king, what would stain the name of the sensual woman he loves (Bacha-Caropia), 
though prompted to acknowledge the truth by his rough soldier-friend (Ismenus 
Tarifa). Cup. Rev., 387 ; Rev. Hon., 437. (Sit. derived orig. from the Arcadia.) 

2. The pretense urged by the prince's enemy (Timantus-Abrahen) that the prince 
had plotted against the king's life. Cup. Rev., 398 ; Rev. Hon., 438. 

3. The popular uprising which frees the prince. Cup. Rev., AOO. In Rev. Hon. .two, 
— one to free him from punishment, and one later to set him on the throne. 

4. The king, his father, dies suddenly ; in Rev. Hon., by poison, as is probably 
the case in Cup. Rev. (it is not clear) . 

5. The prince stabbed by craft, in either case at the very close of the play, by the 
sensual woman whose honor he had defended. 

6. In his last words the prince, Hanilet-like, names his rough soldier-friend (Tarifa- 
Ismenus) heir and successor. 

7. At the close, there is similar Machiavellian cursing on the part of the villain 
(Bacha-Abrahen) when in the throes of death. 



' Mr. Collins adduces some parallels in his preface and notes, but none that indi- 
cate at all clearly direct contact with Shak. 

213 



8. The rough soldier-friend Tarifa is a striking imitation of Ismenus, especially in 
his attitude toward the conflicting interests of the woman (cf. Dion's ruthlessness 
toward Arethusa for Philaster's sake, III, 1, p. 36, and Melantius's toward his sister 
Evadne for Amintor's. and cf. L,eontius in Hum. Lieut., IV, 4. p. 254b). Osman, 
also, another captain and friend, is like Ismenus in this respect, uses similar lan- 
guage of ladies in general and of this one in particular. Rev. Hon., 441 b, Cup. Rev., 
402 b, etc. 

9. The contrast and antagonism presented between the point of view of court-lords 
and warriors : Timantus and Ismenus, Cup. Rev., 391, 396, Selinthus and the two — 
Osman and Gaselles, — Rev. Hon., 416-17. 

10. Fletcherian two-word feminine endings in some number, interesting and 
lively conduct of plot, a Beaumont and Fletcher levity even at tragic moments 
(vSelinthus. Rev. Hon., p. 447 ; Cup. Rev., II. 5, etc.).' 

' This fixes the date more narrowly. Rev. Hon. was first reg. Nov. 29, 1653 ; Cup. 
Rev. was acted Jan. 5, 1612 (first pub. 1615) ; so 1612 is the backward limit. This 
quashes the conjecture of Koppel — de>- 7vohl noch jugendliche Dramatiker {Ch. M. F., 
p. 73) , and p. 79 still stronger, Mir maclien Rev. Hon. und Alp/ioiisus mil ihrer Hduf- 
74ng von Grdueln, ihreni Gemetzel einen entschieden jugendlichen Eindruck. An- 
other example of the fruits of that judging of an author's work separately, according 
to preconceived notions of the crudity of youthful work and without regard for the 
influences and traditions which have presided over the making of it. (Cf . App. I as 
to Collins on the Ath. Tr.) Perhaps, however, he is only following Mr. Fleay 
(II. 311). who attributes Alphonsus to George Peele, and finds a reference to it in the 
Taming of the Shrezv ! (Induction, 1. 5 ; as if " Richard Conqueror ", which Fleay 
interprets as "Richard, Earl of Cornwall," were anything but a Partingtonism 
like " Arthur's bosom " : Richard Crookback — William the Conqueror.) 



214 



I 



ERRATA AND ADDENDA. 

Page 17, line 14, for Ed^uard read Everard. 

Page 18, line 6 from foot, for Hixc read hccc. 

Page 19, "an abrupt cry." Prof. Kittredge is of the opinion that it was, in both 
cases, a cry taken from life. Cf. " a rescue ! " In that event the support of the testi- 
mony of the Ath. Tr. to the date of VV. D., of which we have little need, falls away. 

Pages 21, 22. Prof. Kittredge doubts whether Webster may not have drawn this 
I,atin independently from Martial (XIII, 2 ; X, 2) and Virgil. The last— " Flectere 
si nequeo " — he a.Si5ures nie was a common saw. But as for the quotations fro:n 
Martial, the use of them in prefaces, — which, in the case of Jonson's at least, 
Webster was now studying — and the similar use, word for word, of the " non 
norunt," at the very end of the preface, seem to me evidence not to be slighted. 
Moreover, in the case of the sixteen-word quotation from Martial, XIII, 2, Webster 
uses only what Dekker quotes, although the latter is not quoting the Epigram 
consecutively ; and in the case of the "non norunt " Webster uses the phrase quite 
as Dekker does. — of the immortality of great writing, not, as Martial himself, of 
the perpetuity of paper and ink. " Calumny may wound my name, but not kill my 
labours ; proude of which, my care is the lesse, because I can as proudly boast with 
the poet, that Non norunt hcBc monnmenta mori." This seems decisive: Webster 
may also have had recourse to Martial himself, but it was Dekker that suggested 
him. 

Page 24, line 1, for or read and. 

Page 47, line 4, read historical. 

Page 78, line 20, read City. 

Page 94, line 2, delete at the end. 

Page 94, line 16, delete comma after Revenger's Tragedy. 

Page 96, line 3. for is read are. 

Page 105, line 3, for 7t'as read ivere. 

Page 105, line 17, put the comma after as. 

Page 121, line 18, ior ozvls read owVs. 

Page 124, line 2, delete the comma. 



215 



INDEX OF PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 



'pHE index is not complete, is intended only to supplement the table of contents and 
the frequent captions of the text. Single plays of which the author is known are 
listed only when occurring isolatedly or when something important or definite — as the 
date — is at issue. In other cases see under the author, n stands for note. 



All Fools. 67-8. 

Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany. 94, 98, 

104, 213-14. 
Antonio's Revenge. 94, 99, 100 n. 
Appius and Virginia. 33. 140, 160-2. 193- 

200, ch. iv. 
As You Like It. 125 n. 
Atheist's Tragedy, The. 19,95, 105 f, 210-13. 
Beaumont and Fletcher. 149, 151-2. 168 n, 

171-193, 213-14. 
Bonduca. 149. 
Byron's Conspiracy. 67. 
Byron's Tragedy. 67, 69. 
Cas-sar's Fall. 12. 
Caesar and Pompey. 66, 68. 
Chapman, George, 65-70, ch. iii, 94-5, 

104-5, 129, 134 n, 137, 140 f, 171, 213-14. 
Chettle, Henry. Ch. iii, 103. 105. 
Contention betwi.xt Yorke and L,ancaster, 

First Part of the. 45-55. 
Christmas Comes but Once a Year. 12. 
Cure for a Cuckold, A. 33-4, 34-43, 162-171, 

ch. iv. 
Cynthia's Revels. 92. 

Dekker, Thomas. 13. 14, 15 n, 21, 22, 45-82. 
Devil's I,aw-Case , The. 30-2, 133, 153-160, 

171, 211, ch. iv. 
Dutch Courtesan, The. 163 f. 
Eastward Ho. 15, 16 n. 
Edward II. 46-49. 
Edward III. 47. 

Fair Maid of the Inn, The. 32, 155-160. 
Fair Quarrel, The. 33. 
Fawn, The. 16, 17, ch. iv. 
Fletcher, John. 38, 148-50. 171-193, ch. iv. 
Ford, John. 12. 
Fortunatus, Old. 92. 
Gascoigne, George. 92. 
Guise, The. 11,12,205. 
Hamlet (Shak.'s or Kyd's). 60, 61, 97, ch. 

iii, 101 n, 108, 112. 
Henrv IV. 47, 76-79. 
Henry VI. 46, 48. 

Hey wood, Thomas. 150, 191, 197-200. 
Hoffman. .See Chettle. 
Hog hath I,ost his Pearl, The. 92. 
Honest Man's P'ortune, The. 118 n. 
Isle of Gulls, The. IS. 
Jeronimo. Ch. iii, 96, 126, 195. 
Jew of Malta, The. 94. 
Jonson, Ben. 16, 92. 
King John. 46. 
Kyd, Thomas. 94-152. 
I^ady Jane. 13, 49. 
I,ate Murther of the .Sonn upon the Mother, 

The. 12. 
Ivittle French I^awyer, The. 168-170. 
Ivocrine. 46. 



Ivust's Dominion. 32, 94, 153-160, 200-203. 

Lyly, John. 199. 

Malcontent, The. 13, 55-62, 108, 110 n, J 

ch. iii. I 

Malfi, The Duchess of. 22-30, 83-152, 183. ^ 
Marlowe, Christopher. 46 f, 94, 98, 145 f, 

200-205, 
Marston, John. 55-62, ch. iii, 132 f, 106 f. 

115, 211-12. 
Massinger, Philip. 38, 114, 162 f, 171-193, 

ch. iv. 
Mas.sacre at Paris, The. 12, 94, 205. 
Merry Wives of Windisor, The. 64, 76-9. 
Michaelmas Term. 17. 
Monumental Column. 90, 140, 
Monuments of Honor. 42. 
Northward Ho. 13, 15-18, 62-82. 
Othello. 64, 120. 

Parliament of I^ove, The. 34, 162 f, 169 n. 
Return from Parnassus, The. 92. 
Revenge for Honour. 94, 104, 213-14. 
Revenge of Bussy d'Ambois. 104. 
Revenger's Tragedy, The. 95, 105 f , 211. 
Richard II. 46. 
Richard III. 46-49. 
Richard III. The True Tragedy of. 46-49, 

145. 
Roaring Girl, The. 71-2, ch. ii. 
Rowley, William. 33, 35 f. 
Satiromastix. 78, ch, ii. 
Scornful I,ady, The. 168-70. 
Second Maiden's Tragedy, The. 113 f, 

118 n. 
' Sesers Ffalle.' 12. 
Shakspere. 46-99, 64, 76-9, 112-13, 120-1, 

137 n, 142 f, 145 f, 151, 171, 189, 193-7, 200- 

205, 211-13. 
Sophonisba. 134 n, 63. 
Spanish Curate, The. 32, 155-6, 163. 
Spanish Tragedy, The. 57, 94. 97, 99, 100 n. 

144. 
Tancred and Gismunda. 95, 134 n. 
Thierry and Theodoret. 29. 
Thracian Wonder, The. 34-37. 
Titus Andronicus. 94-98. 
' Too Shapes.' 12. 
Tourneur, Cvril. Ch. iii. 105 f, 113-14, 138 f, 

210-13. 
Troublesome Raigne of King John of Eng- 
land, The. 46-49, 145. 
True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke. 

The. 45-55, 145. 
Two .Shapes. 12. 

Weakest Goeth to the Wall, The. 34. 
Westward Ho. 13. 14, 62-82,211. 
White Devil, The. 18-22, 83-152, 183. 
Wounds of Civil War, The. 92. 
Wyatt. Sir Thomas. 13, 45-55. 



216 



JOHN WEBSTER 



THE PERIODS OF HIS WORK AS 
DETERMINED BY HIS RELATIONS 
TO THE DRAMA OF HIS DAY 

=Z=== BY ^===^ 

ELMER EDGAR STOLE 

A. M. (Harv.) ; Ph. D. (Monac.) 



PRINTED BY ALFRED ML'DGE & SON. BOSTON. MASSACHUSETTS 

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